Six States Sign Kishau Multipurpose Project Agreement

Chief ministers of six states signed the Kishau Multipurpose Project agreement on Tuesday in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Jal Shakti Minister C. R. Patil, resolving a water-sharing dispute that had remained pending for decades.

The signatories were Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini. The Union Home Secretary, the Secretary of the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and the chief secretaries of the states concerned were also present.

Speaking at the meeting, Shah described the agreement as historic and said it would benefit Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi. He noted that all six states had given their consent and signed the pact, and thanked the chief ministers and the Jal Shakti Minister for their role in advancing the project.

Shah said the Kishau agreement is the tenth water dispute set to be resolved since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, and that the period from 2018 to 2026 would be remembered for the resolution of long-standing disputes through consensus. He listed earlier settlements, including the Lakhwar Multipurpose Project and the Shahpur Kandi Dam Project in August 2018, the Renukaji Multipurpose Dam Project in 2019, the Ken-Betwa Link agreement between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in 2021, the revised Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal river link in 2024, the approval of a scheme to carry water from Hathinikund to the Yamuna through an underground pipeline in February 2024, the resolution of the Narmada Project rehabilitation dispute in July 2026, and the settlement of the Son basin water-sharing dispute between Bihar and Jharkhand in August 2026.

On Kishau, Shah said an agreement in 1994 provided that separate pacts would be signed for each storage project in the basin, and that progress followed the resolution of the Lakhwar and Renukaji disputes in 2019. A formal agreement was reached on 16 June this year, he said, after the Jal Shakti Ministry secured the consent of all states while weighing technical and economic considerations.

The project has been declared a national project. The Centre will bear about 90 per cent of its financial burden, with the remaining 10 per cent shared by the partner states in line with the 1994 agreement. Shah said Uttarakhand had raised certain difficulties, and that the Centre had assured the state of efforts to accommodate its demands under central schemes and of assistance with the financial burden falling on it.

Under the agreement, a 232.6-metre-high concrete gravity dam will be built on the Tons river along the Uttarakhand-Himachal Pradesh border, with a storage capacity of 1,562 million cubic metres. The project is expected to irrigate 97,000 hectares and generate 1,476 million units of clean hydropower. Delhi is projected to be the largest beneficiary.

Shah said the original allocation of Yamuna waters had not accounted for the river's environmental flow, leaving no water for the river itself. The new agreement will make 25 per cent of the water available, which he said would benefit both Delhi and the Yamuna and aid environmental conservation. He added that work to clean the Yamuna has been under way since Rekha Gupta became Delhi's chief minister, and expressed confidence that the goal of a clean Yamuna would be achieved by 2029.