ISLAMABAD - The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) is planning to install two small turbines on the Neelum Jhelum to meet the forecast reduction in the project’s hydropower generation capacity owing to the construction of India’s Kishanganga Hydropower project, source told The Nation here Thursday.
The sources said that the forecast shortage of the project, to be caused by the construction of dam by India, is around 10 percent of the total power generation capacity of Neelum Jhelum, of 968MW. If completed the new power generation capacity will be about 97 or 100MW less than the initial estimation of the project, which mean it will come down to about 868MW.
According to the detail in 1960, Pakistan and India hammered out the Indus Water Treaty, which governs the sharing of water on rivers heading downstream from India to Pakistan. However, India is building 330MW Kishanganga project in Held Kashmir, which would divert the River Neelam to Wullar Lake, reducing water for the Neelum Jhelum project, which is just 70 kilometers downstream from Kishanganga, thus reducing the power generation capacity of the 969MW Neelum-Jhelum plant by about 10 percent. On May 17, 2010, Pakistan started arbitral proceedings against India under the Indus Waters Treaty 1960 and approached the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) against the violation of the treaty.
In its decision, in the Kishanganga dispute, the Hague-based Court of Arbitration allowed the diversion of only minimum flow of water from the Neelum/ Kishanganga River for power generation. The verdict has an ultimate impact on Pakistan as it will reduce the water flow to Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in turn will result in the reduction of its power generation capacity.
However the official said that the water shortage will be only for three to four months of winter season and the rest of the years the river will flow in full capacity thus will not affect the power generation capacity of the dam. The Water and Power Development Authority is also evolving a strategy to minimise the negative impact to be caused by the winter season water shortage on the power generation capacity of Neelum-Jhelum project, the official maintained.
It is being planned to install two small turbines of 40MW each on the dam to undo the impact of the seasonal water reduction on the power generation, the source informed and added this way the average power generation will stay above 950MW throughout the year. The small turbine to be installed in the already designed tunnels and will work on the low flow of water, the official informed.
The Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Plant was first approved in 1989 and was to begin in 2002 but it was delayed till 2007 when Pakistan awarded the contract to the Chinese consortium, CGGC-CMEC (Gezhouba Group and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation). The Project, to be completed at the revised estimate cost of Rs 414 billion, is located in the vicinity Muzaffarabad. It envisages the diversion of Neelum River water through a tunnel out-falling into Jhelum River. The intake Neelum-Jhelum is at Nauseri 41km east of Muzaffarabad.