Himachal Pradesh, along with Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, will sign an MoU with the Centre on Tuesday for the construction of the Kishau Dam project on the Tons, a tributary of the Yamuna, along the Himachal-Uttarakhand border.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will sign the MoU on behalf of the Centre.
The Kishau project is an under-construction multipurpose water storage and 422-MW hydropower project. The hurdles to its construction were recently cleared after the Centre assured Himachal Pradesh that it would not have to bear any financial burden towards the project. The Centre will also bear 90 per cent of the cost of its water component.
Estimates suggest Himachal Pradesh will receive around Rs 600 crore annually from the power component of the project without making any capital investment.
The state is also learnt to have secured a commitment for access to 378 million cubic metres of water in the Yamuna basin.
Coming up in Himachal’s Sirmaur district, the project is expected to create irrigation potential for around 97,000 hectares of land and generate 517 million cubic metres of drinking water annually.
The estimated cost of the project is around Rs 15,000 crore.
