Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
The construction of the Shahpur Kandi Barrage and the Ranjit Sagar Dam, a long-standing point of dispute between India and Pakistan, has a rich historical context.
The journey to the construction of these dams took a lot of work, with numerous concerns between the two countries leading to the postponement of the initial plans.
The 1960 Indus Water Treaty, a significant milestone in the water rights dispute between India and Pakistan, was signed under the supervision of the World Bank.
This treaty, which granted India complete rights over the Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas, and Pakistan rights over the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, was signed in Karachi by Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the former president of Pakistan, and Jawaharlal Nehru, then prime minister of India.
The governments of Punjab Jammu and Kashmir struck an agreement in 1979 to halt water supplies to Pakistan in order to construct the Ranjit Sagar Dam and the downstream Shahpur Kandi barrage.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his Punjabi counterpart Parkash Singh Badal signed the agreement. The project was expected to be finished by 1998, and former prime minister Indira Gandhi laid the groundwork in 1982.
Upstream of the Madhopor Barrage at Madhopor is the Thein dam, also called the Ranjit Sagar dam, which is situated on the Ravi River. This project is used for both irrigation and power generation. Standing 160 meters tall, this hydroelectric dam has a 600 MW capacity, making it the biggest in Punjab.
India built the Shahpur Kandi dam, which has been delayed for 45 years, stopping the flow of water into Pakistan from the Ravi River. The Ravi River continued to flow into Pakistan even after the Ranjit Sagar Dam was finished in 2001.
This was due to the inability to construct the Shahpur Kandi Barrage. The Shahpur Kandi project was declared a national project in 2008, although construction didn't start until 2013. The 2014 conflicts between Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab caused this project to stop once more.
In 2018, the centre successfully mediated and facilitated an agreement between the two states, which was initiated shortly after and ultimately concluded in 2024.
The 55.5-meter-tall Shahpur Kandi dam, which is part of a multipurpose river valley project in Punjab's Pathankot district, is situated 11 km downstream of the Ranjit Sagar Dam on the Ravi River. Two hydroelectric generating projects in the project have a combined capacity of 206 MW.
With the completion of these projects, significant parts of Jammu and Kashmir, namely Kathua and Samba, will now be irrigated with the same amount of water that Pakistan previously obtained. This shift in water distribution will allow the Union Territory to irrigate 32000 hectares of land with 1150 cusecs of water, marking a significant change in the region's water management.
India has worked on several water management projects, such as building reservoirs at Thein (Ranjitsagar) on the Ravi, Pong and Pandoh dams on the Beas and Bhakra dams on the Sutlej. Almost all of India's share, or about 95% of the water from Eastern rivers, may now be used because of these efforts, the Beas-Sutlej link, and projects similar to Indira Gandhi Nahar.