The Chenab choke: India readies dams with desilting, flushing to retailer extra water

India is taking pressing motion to arrange the reservoirs of two run-of-the-river hydropower vegetation on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir—Baglihar and Salal—for the storage and management of water movement to Pakistan in the course of the winter months. This consists of restricted flushing and desilting of the reservoirs.

Within the coming days, different dams will bear the identical process to enhance storage inside India. The motion is a part of the nation’s complete plan to regulate and halt the movement of the western rivers—the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab—to the neighbouring nation, following the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) after final month’s terror incident in Pahalgam.

Whereas desilting entails dredging to take away accrued sand, flushing is a course of that makes use of sturdy water movement to clear sediments from the reservoir.

“For the reason that Treaty is on pause and there’s no obligation to comply with its provisions, we might do flushing on any undertaking with none obligation. It can guarantee longer efficient lifetime of such tasks,” former Central Water Fee chairman Kushvinder Vohra advised TOI.

In response to him, the flushing course of could also be accomplished inside one to 2 days for typical tasks with smaller reside poundages, resembling Baglihar and Kishanganga.

The roadmap’s short-term actions embody desilting and flushing reservoirs, whereas medium-term measures concentrate on accelerating hydropower tasks underneath improvement, resembling Pakal Dul (1,000 MW), Ratle (850 MW), Kiru (624 MW), and Kwar (540 MW).

Vohra famous that one other short-term measure can be to scale back the movement of 9 cubic metres of water from Kishanganga—as required by the earlier award—and use it to generate extra electrical energy for India.

As a part of long-term plans, 4 extra energy vegetation are proposed, which can permit India to utilise extra water from the western rivers by related reservoirs.

These tasks won’t solely enhance India’s hydropower capability in Jammu & Kashmir from round 4,000 MW to over 10,000 MW however will even improve the amount of water that may be saved to be used within the Union Territory and its neighbouring states.

The roadmap additionally consists of restarting the beforehand stalled Tulbul undertaking on the Jhelum, enhancements to Wuller Lake and the Jhelum to bolster flood management, raise tasks to allow quicker water utilization, and optimised use of the Ranbir and Pratap canals to make sure extra water for the Jammu area.

“Many different issues can be executed which can unfold at an applicable time,” Vohra added.