Rains ease storage in Bhakra, Pong dams

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 14

Rains that have lashed the region in the past two days have wreaked havoc but they have also proved to be a saviour for dams where the storage situation was critical this year.

Following the rains, the inflow into the Bhakra dam’s reservoir, which lies on the Sutlej in Himachal Pradesh and is vital for irrigation and power generation, almost doubled. From an inflow of about 70,000 cusecs on August 13, it went up to 1.31 lakh cusecs on Tuesday morning, according to data available with government water monitoring agencies. On August 12, the inflow was 48,000 cusecs.

The water level, which was rising by two or three feet a day over the past few weeks, went up by eight feet on Tuesday, from 1,601 feet to 1,609 feet. Owing to reduced snowmelt in the dam’s catchment area this year, the water levels in dams were significantly below normal, prompting the Bhakra Beas Management Board to sound an alarm over water availability in the coming months.

“Given the present rate of inflow, the water situation is no longer critical, though we are still not in the comfortable zone,” a government official said. “Given the weather forecast for more rains, we expect water levels to rise further, which could, to some extent, offset the dry period that had prevailed earlier,” he added.

The demand for water from states in the region has also reduced due to rain as well as filling up of the river and feeding tributaries and nullahs downstream of the dam. The outflow was about 17,000 cusecs on August 11, which came down to about 11,000 cusecs on Tuesday.

At Pong on the Beas, the inflow jumped from 94,000 cusecs on August 13 to 2.19 lakh cusecs on Tuesday morning. The outflow, which was about 7,000 cusecs on August 11, has come down drastically to just 510 cusecs.

Thien on the Ravi in Punjab has witnessed a dip in inflow from about 21,000 cusecs on May 13 to 14,000 cusecs on Tuesday. Reduced water demand, however, has resulted in no water being discharged from the reservoir on August 13 and 14. About 5,000 cusecs were being released before this.