Bhakra’s spillway gates opened
Jangveer Singh/TNS

Chandigarh, September 11
The Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) today opened the spillway gates of the Bhakra dam following a heavy inflow, which has taken the water level in the dam to 1680 ft, the maximum level fixed by the authorities.

This has been opposed by former Bhakra designer GS Dhillon as well as the All-India Power Engineers Association which claim the level should be allowed to go up till 1685 ft, which is the dam’s filling capacity. BBMB Chairman AB Agarwal told The Tribune that the safe operation of the dam was vital and that the level would be maintained at 1680 ft till the end of the filling season on September 20. This level was enough for efficient management of the dam.

The dam authorities, accordingly, had opened the spillway gates and released a small quantity of 4,000 cusecs.

The inflow today had been recorded at 42,000 cusecs, he said. The dam authorities had informed the Punjab Government that low floods could occur at a few points, he said. Meanwhile, Dhillon, who was part of the team that designed the Bhakra dam, said the latter was designed to store 1685 cusecs of water and that reducing the same by 5 ft would result in a “colossal” loss to Punjab. Dhillon said this would amount to sacrificing 4 per cent of the dam’s storage capacity and would affect Punjab the most as the state drew 51 per cent of the water reserves of the dam. All-India Power Engineers Federation head Padamjit Singh claimed the full reservoir level was 1690 ft and not 1680 ft. He said the dam had been filled up to 1687.36 ft in 1975, 1685 ft in 1978, 1686 ft in 1983, 1687 ft in 1988, 1682.5 ft in 1994 and 1683.49 ft in 1995. Padamjit said with the monsoon retreating in five days, the opening of the spillway gates was simply not justified. The water level at the Pong dam today was 2 ft below the maximum level of 1390 ft, receiving an inflow of 26976 cusecs.

At Ranjit Sagar dam in Gurdaspur district, the water level was far from the danger mark at 524.40 metres against the top level of metres.