NHPC moves to expedite desilting at J&K's Salal Dam

With the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance, state-owned NHPC Ltd is looking to expedite de-silting at the strategically important Salal Dam in Jammu & Kashmir to free up reservoir capacity, which will help in holding more water and increase the efficiency at its power plant.

Sedimentation reduces water storage capacity and also causes abrasive damage to turbines of the power plant, people close to the development said.

The 690 MW Salal hydropower project is on the Chenab River in J&K's Reasi district.


"A composite study has been planned to best manage the sediment. Although the plan is around three possibilities, the best one is yet to be determined," a person in the know said.

These possibilities are flushing, dredging and under-sluice.

Over the years, because of the provisions of the treaty with Pakistan, the silt removal mechanism was limited, leading to sediment build-up in the dam and causing the reservoir capacity to fall to just 14 million cubic meters in recent times from the original 284 million cubic meters.

Dredging is one way to take out the slurry from the dam and the company is already doing some work in Salal.

For dredging, the issue is finding a market for the removed silt, another person said.

As for under sluice installation, a structure designed to remove accumulated sediment, the company is in the tendering process though it has not decided any timeline for the work.

"The status of the silt is not known as to whether it has become compact or is it loose. The core drilling to study the silt has begun," the second person said.

The dam and the power plants were built in phases in 1987 and 1994.