Ghaggar in spate, no flood threat

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 13

With a heavy rainfall in its catchment areas in the Shivalik hills since Sunday, the Ghaggar river has swelled. Officials of the Irrigation Department, though, dismissed the fear of floods.

“The discharge of nearly 12,000 cusecs of water was observed in the Ghaggar river at Panckhkula on Monday morning. Water level receded to 8,000 cusecs by the evening. Till the water level crosses 25,000 cusecs, we do not sound an alert,” said Jitender Goswami, Superintending Engineer, Irrigation Department.

He said the maximum discharge of water ever observed in the Ghaggar at Panchkula was 1.25 lakh cusecs. Besides, about 12,000 cusecs of water passed through the Tangri river in Ambala Cantt on Monday. An alert is sounded once water level in the Tangri river crosses 7,000 cusecs.

In Markanda, another seasonal river, the discharge of 30,000 cusecs of water was observed. An alert is issued once water level crosses 60,000 cusecs.

Sources say the Tangri river empties into the Markanda river near Pehowa and Markanda merges with the Ghaggar near Cheeka in Kaithal.

After this, the Ghaggar criss-crosses through Patiala, Sangrur and Mansa districts of Punjab and Fatehabad and Sirsa districts of Haryana before entering Pakistan through Rajasthan.

SK Janaawa, Executive Engineer in the Irrigation Department at Fatehabad, said there was no immediate fear of floods in Fatehabad or Sirsa.

“Nearly one-third of the water discharge at Cheeka reaches Khanauri (Sangrur) and about one-third of that reaches Fatehabad district. The rest is lost in seepage and evaporation,” he added.