Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant
The Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant is an $864 million run-of-the-river hydroelectric scheme in Jammu and Kashmir, India. It diverts water from the Kishanganga River to a power plant in the Jhelum River basin. It is located north of Bandipore in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and has an installed capacity of 330 MW.
Construction on the project began in 2007 and was expected to be complete in 2016. Construction on the dam was temporarily halted by the Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration in October 2011 due to Pakistan's protest of its effect on the flow of the Kishanganga River. In December 2013, the Court ruled that India could divert water for power generation while ensuring a minimum flow of 9 cumecs downstream to Pakistan Administered Kashmir.
All three units of 110 MW each were commissioned and synchronized with the electricity grid by 30 March 2018. On 19 May 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the project.
Design
The west-flowing Jhelum River has two main tributaries, one being the Kishenganga River in the north, at a higher elevation, and the other being the Jhelum river itself at a lower elevation. The two rivers originate in Indian-administered Kashmir and flow west into Pakistan-administered Kashmir, joining together near Muzaffarabad. This situation presents a unique opportunity of diverting waters from the Kishenganga river into the Jhelum river through a tunnel and using the consequent flows to generate power. Both India and Pakistan have explored the possibility and came up with respective projects: the Kishenganga project in Indian-administered Kashmir and the Neelum–Jhelum project in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.The Kishanganga project includes a tall concrete-face rock-fill dam which diverts a portion of the Kishanganga River south through a tunnel. The tunnel is received by a surge chamber before sending water to the underground power house which contains Pelton turbine-generators. After the power plant, water is discharged through a tail race channel into Bonar Nallah, another tributary of Jhelum. After a short distance the Bonar Nallah drains into the Wular Lake, on the course of the Jhelum River. The drop in elevation from the dam to the power station provides a hydraulic head of.
The dam is equipped with a lower level orifice spillway to transfer flood water as well as silt downstream to protect the power generation reliability and the operating life of the project. The arbitration award permitted the lower level orifice spillway as envisaged by India but prohibited the depletion of dead storage.
Indus waters dispute
The waters of the Jhelum river and its tributaries are allocated to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. However, India is allowed "non-consumptive" uses of the water such as power generation. Under the treaty, India is obliged to inform Pakistan of its intent to build a project six months prior to construction and take into account any concerns raised by the latter.Pakistan strenuously objected to the project, claiming that India was not permitted under the Treaty to divert waters from one tributary to another. Experts have disagreed with this contention. John Briscoe, a former World Bank water expert, points out that the "far-sighted Indian and Pakistani engineers" who drafted the treaty very well anticipated the situation. The paragraph 15 of Annexure D states,
Nevertheless, Pakistan maintained that the diversion of water was prohibited. Asif H. Kazi, an influential water professional, declared, "the treaty absolutely forbids India from undertaking their project".
Other than the legal objection, Pakistan also had concerns that the project would affect the flow of waters into Pakistan-administered Kashmir along the Kishanganga riverbed, impacting agriculture in "thousands of acres" as well as Pakistan's own planned Neelum–Jhelum project downstream. Experts estimated that the impact on the Neelum–Jhelum project would be only about 10 percent, because 70 percent of the waters of Kishanganga/Neelum are generated within Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the project itself reduces the flow by only 21 to 27 percent.
Unable to agree with India, Pakistan raised a 'dispute' under the Indus Waters Treaty, asking the World Bank to assemble a Court of Arbitration. This was the first time a Court of Arbitration was assembled under the treaty.
Court of Arbitration
A Court of Arbitration assembled under the Indus Water Treaty is expected to have seven members, two members each nominated by India and Pakistan, and three 'umpires' appointed by recognised authorities: the chairman appointed by the United Nations secretary-general and the World Bank president, a legal member/umpire appointed by US Chief Justice and Lord Chief Justice of England, an engineer member/umpire appointed by the President of MIT and the Rector of Imperial College, London. A distinguished panel was thus assembled to hear the case.The Court began by rejecting Pakistan's arguments that the Kishanganga project violated the provisions of the treaty. Then it considered whether the project satisfied the treaty's requirements for hydroelectric plants. Article III obligates India to "let flow all the waters of Western Rivers" and "not permit any interference with the waters". Pakistan argued that the project violated Annexure D of the treaty in three respects:
- by the permanent diversion of waters from one tributary to another,
- by failure to conform to the requirements for a permitted run-of-the-river plant, and
- by a diversion of waters between two tributaries that was not "necessary".
The final question was whether the diversion met the requirement of protecting "the then existing agricultural use or hydro-electric use by Pakistan". The court addressed the issue with a sophisticated Vienna Convention analysis. It rejected Pakistan's "ambulatory" interpretation that all its future uses that might evolve over time were protected, and upheld India's interpretation that only those uses existing when Pakistan was given complete information about the project were protected. The court determined that the Neelum–Jhelum project did not exist at the time the Kishenganga project "crystallized". Hence, it was not protected by the treaty provisions.
The court upheld India's right to proceed with the Kishanganga project. But it also concluded that the treaty and the customary international law required India to ensure a minimum environmental flow along the Kishanganga/Neelum riverbed. After requesting additional data from India and Pakistan to determine the requirements for minimum flow, the court determined this to be 12 cumecs. Balancing this figure against India's right to the satisfactory operation of its project, it set down 9 cumecs as the required minimum flow to be ensured at all times.
Drawdown flushing
The CoA also ruled that India shall not lower/draw down the water level below the dead storage level for sediment flushing purpose. CoA also stipulated in its verdict that India shall maintain minimum environmental flows in the Kishanganga river at the line of control point not be less than 9 cumecs continuously. However, the minor differences between India and Pakistan over the project are still not settled.Construction
The Project was taken up by National Hydroelectric Power Corporation. The construction was carried out by Hindustan Construction Company.Benefits
In addition to generating 330 MW power, the diverted water from the Kishanganga River is used for the purpose of irrigation or to generate additional electricity from the downstream Lower Jhelum, Uri and proposed Kohala hydel projects located on the Jhelum River.Future scope
It is stipulated by the CoA that India shall release 9 cumecs for the purpose of environmental flows into the river to reach Pakistan territory. Though there is no stipulation per IWT to maintain minimum environmental flows for a run of the river hydropower plant, CoA stipulated the same as the requirement under Customary international law. The CoA verdict also made provision to contest the minimum environmental flow requirement after 7 years of commissioning the Kishanganga power plant. In case of storage works, Annexure E of IWT clearly permits that the stored water can be used fully in any manner by India without the need to release water to the downstream for minimum environmental flows.There is nearly 50 square kilometers river catchment area below the Kishanganga dam before the river enters in to Pakistan. Downstream of the Kishanganga dam, the river is taking U-turn to enter in to the Pakistan territory. Nearly 100 million cubic meters capacity storage dam can be envisaged close to the LoC to impound all the inflows which can be further pumped through a 6 km long tunnel in to the upstream Kishanganga dam reservoir. The augmented water in to the Kishanganga dam reservoir is also diverted to the Jhelum river to generate additional power by the 330 MW power plant. As the pumping head is not exceeding 15% of the 664 m head available for the power generation, the storage reservoir with pumping facility is highly economical to utilize all the waters of Kishanganga river flowing in India. Water pumping from the storage works/reservoir could be achieved by installing a pumped storage scheme to generate peaking and secondary power additionally.
Inauguration
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kishanganga power plant in the state of Jammu and Kashmir on 19 May 2018.The 330MW Kishanganga hydropower station, work on which started in 2009, is one of the projects that India has fast-tracked in the volatile state amid frosty ties between the nuclear-armed countries.
"This region cannot only become self-sufficient in power but also produce for other regions of the country," Modi said in the state's capital, Srinagar. "Keeping that in mind we have been working on various projects here for the past four years." Pakistan has opposed some of these projects, saying they violate a World Bank-mediated treaty on the sharing of the Indus River and its tributaries upon which 80 percent of its irrigated agriculture depends.