Six States Agree on Kishau Dam Project for Yamuna Rejuvenation

Picture a giant water tank in the mountains. It fills up in the rainy season. Then it releases water slowly through the dry months. That is the idea behind Kishau.

Where will the dam stand?

• The dam will be built on the Tons River, a tributary of the Yamuna.
• It sits on the border of Dehradun district in Uttarakhand and Sirmaur district in Himachal Pradesh.
• The Tons rises at the Bandarpunch mountain in Uttarakhand.
• Where it meets the Yamuna below Kalsi, the Tons carries more water than the Yamuna itself (Tons River).

What will the dam give?

• It will be a concrete gravity dam, about 232.6 metres high.
• It will store about 1,562 MCM of usable water.
• It will help irrigate about 97,000 hectares of farmland.
• It will make about 1,476 million units of electricity a year.
• Kishau Corporation Limited will build it. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand jointly own this company (The NewsMill).

How much power and drinking water?

• The power station will have four turbines of 165 MW each. That makes 660 MW (Kishau Dam).
• The project will also supply about 517 MCM of drinking water a year.
• Delhi and Haryana need this water the most.

Six states share the Yamuna. Each wanted a fair share of water and a fair share of the bill. Agreeing on both took years.

What did the 1994 agreement say?

• On 12 May 1994, the Upper Yamuna states signed a water-sharing MoU.
• It shared the Yamuna’s usable water up to the Okhla Barrage in Delhi.
• It also said the basin needed storage dams.
• Each dam would need its own separate agreement.
• Renuka Ji and Lakhwar got their agreements first. Kishau is the third (Republic).

What happened in 2018?

• Work was first expected to start in 2015.
• Long talks over water sharing kept pushing it back.
• In 2018, the Environment Ministry approved the project. Even then, the states could not agree on who pays how much (Kishau Dam).

How was the cost fight solved?

• The Centre will pay 90% of the water part of the cost.
• The six states will share the other 10%.
• Himachal did not want to pay for the power part. So its share of water will go to Delhi and Rajasthan instead.
• In return, those two states will help with Himachal’s power cost (Akashvani News).

A big dam brings big benefits. It also brings risks. Experts have raised several of them.

What do the experts say?

• The dam sits in the Himalayas, an area at high risk of earthquakes.
• The data on how many people will lose their homes is old.
• Key figures, like the dam’s height and storage, have changed over the years.
• Full impact studies have not been made public (Down To Earth).

Why do the numbers differ?

• Reports from 2018 gave the dam as 236 metres high, with 1,324 MCM of storage.
• The 2026 government figures say 232.6 metres and 1,562 MCM.
• So check the year of any figure you read (Kishau Dam).

The June meeting

• On 16 June 2026, Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting in New Delhi.
• All six states agreed to sign an agreement on Kishau.
• After signing, the project goes to the Union Cabinet for approval (Akashvani News).

The September signing

• On 15 September 2026, the Chief Ministers of all six states signed the agreement.
• Amit Shah and Jal Shakti Minister C R Patil were present.
• Kishau was declared a national project.
• The Home Ministry called it the tenth water dispute taken up for resolution under the Modi government (Down To Earth).