3 good ideas,all dammed up

While the severe rainfall deficit in the upper Yamuna basin last year has been handsomely compensated this year,it has come with a rider of its own.

While the severe rainfall deficit in the upper Yamuna basin last year has been handsomely compensated this year,it has come with a rider of its own. The normal rainfall in the basin has brought with it flood threats ahead of the Commonwealth Games in the capital and has served as a reminder for the government to harness the rainwater flowing down the Yamuna.

The lack of water storage projects in the upper Yamuna basin has long been a concern. The three planned water storage projects,with a total capacity of over 2 billion cubic meters bcm storage upstream,are still struggling to get off the ground in spite of the 90 per cent Central funding promised by the government in 2008. This rainwater is going down the river for want of water storage structures in upper Yamuna river basin. It is flushing the Yamuna river clean,but the three storage projects envisaged several years ago would have saved this precious resource for use during the lean season and would have minimised the flood threats haunting the national capital, A K Bajaj,chairman of the Central Water Commission,said speaking of losses incurred due to the storage projects not taking off.

In fact,these three projects Kishau Himachal Pradesh/Uttarakhand,Lakhvar Vyasi Uttarakhand,and Renuka Himachal Pradesh were declared National Projects in February 2008,over a decade after the agreement between basin states in 1994 that was seen as a resolution of inter-state dispute over sharing of waters in the upper Yamuna basin.

These projects have the potential to provide a total of 1060 MW hydro-power - Lakhvar Vyasi 420 MW,Kishau 600 MW and Renuka 40 MW - while storing over 2 bcm water for irrigation and drinking in the lean season.

Put differently,these storage projects have the potential to store over 1.8 Million Acre Feet MAF of rainwater water for use in lean season with a total potential to irrigate 1.46 lakh hectares from Kishau and Lakhvar Vyasi projects while providing drinking water to Delhi from the Renuka project.

In fact,the Renuka project,which is closest to being operational among the three,is awaiting forest clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forest. These three projects were envisaged to harness the water in upper Yamuna basin for power,irrigation and drinking water purposes. While Kishau in Himachal Pradesh/Uttarakhand and Lakhvar Vyasi Uttarakhand are still under DPR preparation stage as they had to update their DPRs after being granted National Project status,the DPR is ready for Renuka . But it is awaiting forest clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forest that has already granted environment clearance to the Renuka project. Full fledged work will start after the forest clearance is obtained, UN Panjiar,Secretary of Water Resources Ministry,informed The Indian Express.

Since the agreement between upper Yamuna basin states Himachal Pradesh,Haryana,Uttar Pradesh,Delhi and Rajasthan the lone tangible work in the region has been the construction of Hathnikund Barrage,which is not a storage project and hit the headlines after the water released from it caused flood threats in Delhi.

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While the barrage was constructed after the a separate agreement for the same in November 1994,the Kishau Dam Tons river and Renuka Dam Giri river have been less fortunate in not taking off despite agreements between the concerned states.