Sawalkote’s Power of Promise

After decades of delay, the Sawalkote project turns faith into infrastructure and hope into light.

- Er Navaid Runyal

For years, the people of Ramban watched the Chenab roll past their mountains, a river that gave everything except opportunity.

It carried away their hopes as swiftly as it carried silt, while generations waited for a promise called Sawalkote.

‘That promise is finally real.

The Government of India has approved the 31,380-crore Sawalkote Hydropower Project, reviving a plan that began in the 1980s and stalled for four decades.

Back then, engineers dreamt of lighting up northern India with the Chenab’s power. Surveys were done, blueprints drawn, and people believed progress had arrived.

Then came decades of red tape, shifting governments, and environmental disputes that buried the dream in files.

In October 2025, India’s environment ministry finally cleared construction, soon after New Delhi suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, a 1960 pact that had restricted India’s use of western rivers flowing into Pakistan.