Chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi today signed the Kishau Project Agreement in the presence of Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah and Union Jal Shakti Minister C. R. Patil.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta signed the agreement. Senior officials, including the Union Home Secretary, Secretary of the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and the chief secretaries of the six states, were also present.
Describing the agreement as historic, Shah said the project would benefit all six states in different ways and expressed confidence that its completion would mark an important chapter in the country’s water-management history.
“The best thing is that all six states have given their consent and signed the agreement,” Shah said, congratulating the chief ministers and Patil for helping bring the long-pending project to this stage. He said the Centre and the six Yamuna Basin states were committed to completing the project at the earliest.
Shah also highlighted what he described as the Modi government’s efforts to resolve long-standing inter-state water disputes. He said several major disputes had been settled since 2018, including those involving the Lakhwar Multipurpose Project, Shahpur Kandi Dam Project, Renukaji Multipurpose Dam Project and Ken-Betwa Link Project.
He also referred to the Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal River Linking Project, the Hathnikund-Yamuna water-transfer plan and the recent settlements relating to Narmada rehabilitation and water sharing between Bihar and Jharkhand in the Son Basin.
Shah said the period from 2018 to 2026 would be remembered as a phase in which several long-standing water disputes were resolved through cooperation between the Centre and the states.
On the Kishau project, he said an agreement signed on May 12, 1994, had provided for separate agreements for individual storage projects in the Yamuna Basin. The project gained momentum after disputes involving the Lakhwar and Renukaji projects were resolved in 2019, while formal agreement on Kishau was reached on June 16 this year.
The Centre has declared the Kishau project a National Project. According to Shah, the Union government will bear around 90 per cent of the financial burden, while the remaining 10 per cent will be contributed by the participating states in accordance with the 1994 agreement.
He said the Centre had also assured Uttarakhand that efforts would be made to accommodate its concerns under Central government schemes and assist the state with its future financial obligations related to the project.
Shah said Delhi would be among the biggest beneficiaries. He pointed out that when the Yamuna’s waters were originally allocated among states, the river’s environmental flow had not been adequately accounted for. The Kishau agreement, he said, would ensure 25 per cent of the water, benefiting both Delhi and the Yamuna and supporting environmental conservation.
Shah also linked the project to ongoing efforts to clean the Yamuna. He said the rejuvenation of the Yamuna was essential to achieving the broader goal of cleaning the Ganga, as the Yamuna eventually joins the Ganga at Prayagraj.
He expressed confidence that the six states would continue working together to complete the project and help improve water availability for drinking, agriculture, development, and industrial use, while contributing to the restoration of the Yamuna.
