Panic reaction by BBMB led to flooding in Anandpur Sahib

Posted On: 26-Aug-2010 03:43:32 AM By: Vinod Kumar Gupta Font Size: Increase Font Size Decrease Font Size
Panic reaction by BBMB led to flooding in Anandpur Sahib
Panic reaction by BBMB led to flooding in Anandpur Sahib

Patiala: The panic reaction by BBMB to release the water when water level was 1670 feet much below its own bench mark led to breach near Anandpur Sahib flooding of many parts of surrounding areas, said Padam Jit Singh Chairman All India Power Engineers Federation.

According to official sources, water level in Bhakra reservoir on August 1 was 1615.76 feet against bench mark of 1650 feet with water inflow of 55435 cusecs. On August 15, reservoir water level was 1657.12 feet much below the bench mark of 1670 feet and inflow was 67866 cusecs.

Even if water was to be released from reservoir as reportedly decided by BBMB on August 11, the releases should have been made on a dry day and not when there were heavy rains in Punjab. The release of water coupled with heavy rains in Punjab led to breach at Anandpur Sahib.

Even now when the inflow has been reduced to 57321 cusecs, where is the need to spill the water? The spillage is 14173 cusecs. The outflow of 34000 cusecs through turbine with maximum generation should have been sufficient.

Whereas it was full Board decision of BBMB to adopt filling limit of 1670 on 15 August and 1680 ft on 31 August, it was the technical Committee of BBMB which decided on August 12 to restrict filling rate to 1 foot per day after 1670 feet. As per data on BBMB website the total release was 49312 cusecs on 22nd, 59613 on 23rd, 61320 on 24th, and 53607 on August 25.

The water level was 1670.83 on August 21, 1672.13 on August 22, 1673.16 on August 23, 1673.55 on 24th, and 1674.06 on 25th August. The rise in reservoir level was 1.30 feet on 22nd, 1.03 feet on 23rd, 0.39 feet t on 24th and 0.51 feet on 25th August. Today, water level is 1674.53 feet.

Padamjit said that this established that spillage took place even though there was margin to 1680 limit, and second that excessive spillage took place by which the filling was much less than 1 foot per day. Thus, BBMB resorted to excess spillage and did not comply its own decision of technical committee and played over safe to slow down the filling rate, but in this process exposed downstream Sutlej areas to flood risk.

The golden rule to avoid spillage when there is heavy rainfall downstream of the Dam was given the go by. When the breach took place near Anandpur Sahib on August 24 the Punjab sent SOS to BBMB to reduce spillage at Bhakra and only then BBMB reduced spillage by 10,000 cusecs.

By contrast, BBMB is keeping minimum generation at Pong in a bid to ensure filling of reservoir .On August 1 Pong level was1318.74 feet as against filling limit of 1390 feet. Water level in pong reservoir increased to 1353.61feet on August 15 and 1378.6 on August 25, leaving a margin of 11.4 ft to 1390 with 25 days of filling season left up to September 20 . The Pong releases were about 750 cusecs up to August 22 and then increased to 3500 cusecs from August 23 by keeping low generation at Pong power plant whereas with full generation about 17000 cusecs can be released.

While BBMB is spilling at Bhakra on assumption of sustained heavy inflows for Pong the opposite assumption of dry inflows is being relied upon and releases are kept minimum so as to achieve faster filling.