Haryana govt gives nod for construction of Kishau dam

The Haryana government has given its go ahead for the construction of Kishau dam on Tons river, a tributary of the Yamuna.

With the construction of this dam, Haryana would get additional 709 cusecs of water for drinking and irrigation purposes, an official spokesman said here on Wednesday.

According to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by six states in the year 1994, Haryana's share in the Kishau Dam is 709 cusecs water out of the live storage capacity of 1,324 million cubic metre (MCM).

Notably, the Kishau Multi-purpose project, which includes construction of a 236-metre-high concrete dam across Tons river, a tributary of the Yamuna in Dehradun district with a live storage capacity of 1,324 MCM, will create irrigation potential of about 97,000 hectares, make available 517 MCM drinking water and generate 660 MW of power.

Recently, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar along with his counterparts from Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi had inked an MoU with Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari in New Delhi for construction of the Lakhwar multi-purpose project in the Upper Yamuna Basin.

Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi are the six Upper Yamuna Basin states.

Upper Yamuna refers to the stretch of the Yamuna from its origin to the Okhla Barrage in Delhi.

With the construction of this project, Haryana would get 177 cusecs water, which constitutes about 47 per cent of the total storage capacity, he said.