It consists of a 70 m (230 ft) tall gravity dam which diverts water through a 9.5 km (5.9 mi) long headrace tunnel to the power station which discharges back into the Chenab.

The project provides peaking power to the Northern Grid with beneficiary states being Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh.

[1] The Dul Hasti Hydro-Electric Project (HEP) involves a dam and a tunnel ending in a power plant at a bend in the Chenab River in the vicinity of Kishtwar.

The site was intended to capitalize on the proximity to a large river systems capable of providing the water capacity needed to run a hydroelectric plant of Dulhasti's dimensions.

A second problem concerns the sheer geographical challenge of creating a large plant in a region almost totally devoid of supporting infrastructure, including an adequate logistics network (roads and rail lines).