Rampur: Water flow in Sutlej low, generation hit

Rampur, January 17

Hydropower generation in run-of-the-river projects in Himachal Pradesh has been severely affected following a record fall in the water flow of the perennial Sutlej due to an exceptionally dry winter.

The extreme weather conditions prevailing in the Himalayan regions have dramatically depleted the water flow in the Sutlej, shrinking it to one seventeenth, and bringing down electricity generation at the 1,500 MW Nathpa Jhakri hydropower project to a record low.

“The wintry drought in Himachal Pradesh has caused a water discharge crunch in the Sutlej. During peak months of July and August, an average water volume reads 1,200 cumecs, which has, nowadays, shrunk to a meager 70 cumecs only,” said Manoj Kumar, Executive Director of SJVNL, which runs the 1,500 MW hydropower project built on the Sutlej in Shimla and Kinnaur districts. The highest fall in the water flow of the Sutlej now had been registered after 17 years, he added.

Manoj said that electricity generation in the Nathpa Jhakri hydropower project had fallen to below six million units, less than one sixth of the peak season production that touches 39 million units during the summer.

Himachal is witnessing an exceptionally dry winter this time, which will spell doom for apple farmers, tourism stakeholders and hydropower producers in the state. Unprecedented heavy rain during the monsoon last year had caused widespread devastation and Rs 12,000 crore losses. Now, the winter, too, is spelling a drought without snowfall or rain. In December last year, the state experienced 85 per cent precipitation deficit and January is also not obliging with benign weather.