Bhakra and Pong dams brim with water-flood gates opened; Bhakra touches 1678.05 feet
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ August 15,2023
Heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh has increased the water level in the Bhakra and Pong dams, and BBMB has to open the floodgates at Pong and Bhakra.
The water level in the Bhakra dam‘s Gobind Sagar reservoir and the Pong dam reservoir stood at 1,678.05 feet and 1,398.4 feet respectively, on Tuesday. The inflow on Monday in Pong Dam was 430450 cusecs while it was 124005 cusecs in Bhakra reservoir.
Bhakra Dam capacity is 1680.82 feet and today it touches 1678.05 feet with an increase of 3.54 feet.
The water from Bhakra Dam is being released 55167 cusecs. 40438 cusecs water will be released from Turbines and 14729 cusecs through Spillway (floodgates).
As per sources, the water from Pong Dam is being released 90000 cusecs to control the incoming water in the dam from Beas river. Due to release of water many people in Kangra district living in and around river areas have been stranded. On Monday Pong received an all-time high inflow of 7.3 lakh cusecs which led to a 10 feet rise in water levels in its reservoir. At one point, the water in the Pong Dam touched 1,400 feet. From Bhakra reservoir water is being released in canals in addition to river Sutlej.
At Ranjit Sagar the water level was 1713.7 feet with inflow of 13480 cusecs. All the four machines are running at a maximum load of 160 MW plus to consume the increased inflow in the reservoir.
As per Punjab government officials, “to accommodate future inflows, it has been decided to start control releases from the Pong Dam to the tune of around 68,000 cusecs. The release shall be done in a controlled manner and will be increased gradually, therefore the people of the Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Tarn Taran districts are advised not to go near the River. The decision has been taken to accommodate future inflows and the dams are having sufficient storage to store future water inflows.”
Bhakra and Pong dams brim with water-flood gates opened; Bhakra touches 1678.05 feet. Water Resources Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer had said yesterday that the river banks have been sufficiently strengthened to carry these high discharges. The field staff of the department has been asked to keep the position 24 hours a day.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary Anurag Verma held a meeting with all Deputy Commissioners through video conferencing on Monday to discuss the situation arising due to excess water inflow into the dams due to heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh. The Chief Secretary said that the safety of people’s life and property is the highest priority and work should be done to keep the people living along the rivers safe.
