Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir sign agreement on Shahpur Kandi project

Chandigarh, September 10: Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir have come together to sign a historic agreement to start working on the Rs. 2793 crore Shahpur Kandi project.

 

Notably, the Shahpur Kandi project was signed by Karan Avtar Singh Chief Secretary Punjab and BVR Subrahmanyam in the presence of Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik in Raj Bhawan Srinagar.

The Shahpur Kandi project will enable the up-stream Ranjit Sagar Dam project power station to act as a peaking station, besides having its own generation capacity of 206 MW and irrigation benefit of 37,173-hectare CCA to Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir states.

It will also enable the country to fully utilize the Ravi water as per the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan. It will not only deliver power and irrigation benefits to the nation worth Rs. 850 crore annually but will also prevent Ravi water going waste to Pakistan.

The Shahpur Kandi Dam, an inter-state project, was approved by the Government of India as a ‘National Project’ in February 2008 at a cost of Rs. 2285.81 crore, including the irrigation component of Rs. 653.97 crore. Though work on the project started in 2013, it was halted in 2014 due to certain observations raised by the Jammu and Kashmir government.