Already delayed, Renukaji dam project cost escalates

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 18

Already mired by delay in land acquisition, the 40 MW Renukaji dam project cost has been revised to Rs 7,050 crore from Rs 4,596.76 crore based on 2018 price calculation. A multipurpose project of national importance, the dam will supply 23 cubic metres per second water to the basin states, including Delhi, once it’s complete.

Officials said Himachal Power Corporation Ltd (HPCL) was now awaiting the nod for investment clearance from the Central Cabinet, which is likely to meet within two months.

“The Central Water Commission has already approved the investment proposal. We have submitted the revised investment proposal worth Rs 7,050 crore to the Centre for getting the approval for stage-II forest clearance,” HPCL Director (Civil) DS Thakur said.

Thakur said the project had been delayed as the oustees had moved court seeking more compensation. Over 1,142 families of oustees under the banner of Renuka Bandh Jansangharsh Samiti have rejected the government’s land offer, saying they have lost their fertile 947 hectares of land to the project. “Land offered to them for the resettlement in Paonta Sahib and Nahan is barren and located about 100 km away from their homeland,” they rued.

Thakur said the Central government has so far released Rs 446.96 crore for this project which has been disbursed as land compensation to the oustees. Delhi, which is funding the power component of the project to the tune of 90 per cent, too, has released Rs 214 crore.

The Centre had signed the agreement with the Chief Ministers of Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan for the construction of 148-metre-high Renukaji dam on the Giri river, a tributary of Yamuna in Sirmaur district last year.

HPCL engineers said the dam would store 0.404 million acre-foot of live water provide 40 MW for Himachal alone as per the agreement.