Dharamshala, 28th December: On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the groundwork for the Renukaji Dam project. The project was made possible by the Centre bringing together six states: Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Delhi to make it practicable.

The 40 MW project will cost about 7000 crores to construct. It will be extremely advantageous to Delhi, which would receive almost 500 million cubic meters of water per year.

Renukaji Dam was envisioned as a storage facility on the Giri River (a tributary of the Yamuna) in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmour District. The proposal calls for the construction of a 148-meter-high rock-filled dam to supply Delhi and other basin states with 23 cumec water.

The flow of the river Giri will increase by around 110 percent after the dam is built, meeting the drinking water needs of Delhi and other basin states to some extent during the dry season. Renukaji Dam’s stored water will be used by Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi from the Hathnikund Barrage, the NCT of Delhi from the Wazirabad Barrage, and UP, Haryana, and Rajasthan from the Okhla Barrage.

The Renuka Dam Project is part of the Ministry’s National Projects Program. The Government of India is required to cover 90% of the cost of the works part of the water component of the project under the National Project Scheme. In accordance with the MoU of 1994, the remaining 10% cost of the water component will be divided by the basin states in the ratio of water allocation. Furthermore, in an agreement reached on January 11, 2019, the Government of NCT Delhi has agreed to cover 90% of the cost of the project’s power component, with Himachal Pradesh covering the remaining 10%.

In the hilly regions of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh of the Upper Yamuna Basin, three storage projects are proposed to be built on the river Yamuna and two of its tributaries – Tons and Giri. Lakhwar on the Yamuna in Uttarakhand, Kishau on the Tons in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and Renukaji on the Giri in Himachal Pradesh are among them.

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