Shahpur Kandi dam nears completion, Ujh project gets revival push

The Shahpur Kandi dam project is nearing completion, while the revival process of the Ujh multipurpose project has been finalised.

Once commissioned, the two projects are expected to generate hundreds of megawatts of electricity and provide irrigation to large tracts of land in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab.

Sharing a video on social media, Singh said the Shahpur Kandi project on the Ravi river was almost complete.

“The foundation stone of the project was laid in 1984 by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, but after her assassination, successive Congress governments forgot about the project,” Singh said.

“Despite the Ravi river being allocated to India under the Indus Waters Treaty, which is now in abeyance, its waters used to flow into Pakistan,” Singh said.

He said the Ujh project, located on the Ujh river, a tributary of the Ravi, had been conceived nearly 100 years ago during the reign of the Maharaja but had never been executed.

“The project has now been finalised and work will begin soon in a phased manner,” Singh said.

Once completed, the Ujh project is expected to irrigate around 98,000 hectares of land in Punjab’s Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts and Jammu and Kashmir’s Samba and Kathua districts.

The renewed push for projects on the eastern rivers follows India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance after the April 2025 Pahalgam attack and subsequent military action between India and Pakistan. Since then, the government has accelerated work on several pending hydropower and irrigation projects.

The Shahpur Kandi project is expected to generate up to 206 MW of electricity and provide irrigation to around 5,000 hectares in Punjab and 32,173 hectares in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Ujh multipurpose project is designed to generate between 186 MW and 212 MW of electricity, depending on the final configuration and operational parameters.

Officials say the projects will help improve water utilisation, strengthen irrigation infrastructure and add to the region’s power-generation capacity.