Approval for Rs 3,200 Cr NHPC project in Jammu and Kashmir comes amid Indus Waters Treaty suspension

The Centre’s environment appraisal panel has cleared the 260-megawatt Dulhasti Stage II hydropower project on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir, paving the way for construction tenders for the long-pending scheme. The approval was granted by the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change at its forty-fifth meeting earlier this month.

The run-of-the-river project will be developed in Kishtwar district as an extension of the existing 390-megawatt Dulhasti Stage-I hydroelectric plant, commissioned in 2007 and operated by NHPC. The Stage-II project, estimated to cost over Rs 3,200 crore, will divert water from the existing power station through a 3,685-metre tunnel to a new pondage, feeding an underground powerhouse equipped with two units of 130 megawatt each.

The clearance comes at a time when India has kept the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan in abeyance following the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025. While the Chenab basin planning for the project was originally aligned with treaty provisions, the government is now moving ahead with a series of hydropower developments across the Indus river system.

The project will require about 60.3 hectares of land, including 8.27 hectares of private land from villages in the Kishtwar area. Officials said the approval marks a further push to expand hydropower capacity in the Union Territory, which is seen as central to India’s renewable energy strategy in the Himalayan region.