NEW DELHI (BHEL press service) – The Indian state-owned Bharat Heavy Electicals Limited (BHEL) today said it has signed a preliminary agreement (MoU) with Tajikistan for setting up a 100 MW hydro-electric power project. The plant will be set up by BHEL on the Zeravshan (زرافشان) river in Tajikistan, and will help in harnessing the country’s hydro potential, it said.

Tajikistan is planning to construct a reservoir and hydropower station in the upper reaches of the Zeravshan River. Currently 96% of the water resources are used for irrigation, mainly in Uzbekistan.

The Zeravshan River was formerly a tributary to the Amu Darya but lost this function with the development of irrigation in the lowland parts of the catchment area. Some hydrologists therefore consider the Zeravshan an independent river; others still attribute it to the Amu Darya.

Tajikistan (upstream) and Uzbekistan (downstream) are riparian countries to the Zeravshan River. Due the sheer impossibility of determining the size of the catchment area, many hydrologists simply give a figure of 12,200 km² for the mountain part of the catchment area. Currently, the most upstream weir of the irrigation system for the Karakul Oassis is considered the mouth of the Zeravshan River.

Obviously, the construction of the dam opposses Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and the signature of the present MoU with BHEL will increase tensions between the two countries.

In Tajikistan, BHEL has commissioned a hydro generator for Pamir-1 project in Khorog and is presently executing renovation, modernization and updating of Varzob-1 hydro power project, the company statement said.

Besides Tajikistan, BHEL has presence in the Central Asia in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. BHEL’s operations are spread across 75 countries and include products such as power plants (thermal, gas and hydro), turbines, generators, sub-stations, transformers, motors, photo-voltaic equipment, oil-field equipment, etc. The cumulative overseas installed capacity of BHEL manufactured power plants exceeds 9,000 MW across 21 countries. BHEL is at present executing various power plant projects in as many as 20 countries to install about 5,000 MW of generating equipment.