Punjab-J&K inks ₹2,793 cr dam agreement

Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir recently signed an agreement on the Shahpur Kandi dam project, which would be completed in three years and would generate 207 MW power and irrigate 95,000 acres of land across states, Punjab state power minister, Gurpreet Singh Kangar said, elaborating that Shahpur Kandi, which entailed an investment of ₹2,793 crore, is vital to Punjab. It would allow India to utilize fully the water of the Ravi as per the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan. The genesis of the Shahpur Kandi project can be traced to a 1979 agreement signed between the then CMs Parkash Singh Badal and Sheikh Abdullah for the Ranjit Sagar (Thein) Dam, to be built on the Ravi on the border of the two states. To optimize the utilization of the water, a second dam is to come up at some distance downstream, at Shahpur Kandi in Punjab‘s Gurdaspur district. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi laid the foundation of the Ranjit Sagar dam in 1982 but the project stopped in 2014 after Jammu and Kashmir raised certain objections. The impasse has been resolved recently and now the cost for the construction of the dam has been escalated to ₹2,793.54 crore.