Flood puts barrage in eye of political storm

Yamuna water being sent to Delhi, not UP, in organised plan, alleges AAP; barrage officials say water regulated as per rules

- Neeraj Mohan

The Delhi flood has brought into sharp focus the Hathnikund barrage, upstream on the Haryana-UP border, through which the flow of water of the Yamuna is regulated, with the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday alleging it was being deliberately mismanaged to inundate the Capital.

How the barrage works, therefore, is important to understand.

Water regulation through Hathinikund barrage (it is not a dam, and does not have a reservoir or overflow channel) is regulated by the Upper Yamuna River Board, which has representatives of all riparian stakeholders of the river -- Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan – ensuring that every state gets the share of the water agreed upon on May 12, 1994.

The agreement was signed under the aegis of the then Water Resources ministry, now Jal Shakti ministry, to resolve a long-pending Yamuna water dispute between different states, and to ensure that the states get adequate water for drinking and irrigation.

A key part of the agreement was to build the Hathinikund barrage, which started in 1996, and was completed in 1998, to replace the Tajewala barrage, 3km downstream, and set up the Upper Yamuna River Board to regulate all water storage and barrages on the Yamuna till Okhla in south Delhi, in consultation with the floodplain states.

The Hathinikund barrage (HKB) regulates the flow and distributes share of water from the mainstream of the Yamuna, Western Yamuna Canal (WYC) in Haryana and Eastern Yamuna Canal (EYC) in Uttar Pradesh, as per the agreement. Delhi is supposed to get 0.580 billion cubic meter of water every year from Yamuna through Hathinikund.