Large parts of Punjab are facing flood disaster since about Aug 14, 2023. There is no doubt that these floods are due to sudden, untimely releases of massive quantities of water from BBMB managed Pong and Bhakra Dams. It is welcome news that even Himachal Pradesh Chief Secretary has now listed the three BBMB managed dams situated in HP, namely, Pong, Bhakra and Pandoh among the 21 dams that have violated the Dam Safety Norms and also the CWC Guidelines of 2015 and action will be taken against them.
Facts beyond dispute A number of aspects of this wide spread and tragic Punjab flood disaster are beyond dispute:
– The floods are due to water releases from Pong and Bhakra dams. During this flood episode there has been very little local rains in Punjab.
– The water releases from the dams were so sudden that army, NDRF, BSF, IAF and SDRF had to rescue and save thousands of people from the flooded areas. So not only the floods were due to the dams, but the releases were so sudden that there was no time for orderly evacuation of the affected people. It also shows that the water release did not take into considering the carrying capacity of the rivers downstream from the dams.
– The Bhakra and Pong dams were full (water level at Bhakra on Aug 14: 1678 ft against FRL of 1680 ft and at Pong dam at almost 1400 ft against FRL of 1390 feet) and beyond full respectively by middle of Aug this year (According to BBMB, this happened only once, in 1988 before this), which should not have been the case. The dams should have been full only closer to the end of monsoon, around Sept 20. The fact that the dams were this full by Aug 15 is complete violation of rule curve.
– The Bhakra Beas Management Board that manages the Bhakra and Pong dams is completely non transparent for the affected people of Punjab and others, in terms of the daily and hourly water level, water inflow and outflow information on its website, so there is no way to ascertain and study to what extent the decisions of the BBMB about dam operation were prudent and according to rule curve.
– While there may be some truth in the claim of BBMB officials that IMD did not predict the specific rainfall that lead to heavy inflows into the Bhakra and Pong reservoirs around Aug 15, there is no doubt that once the rain fell, the BBMB officials could have started taking action in terms of releases, but they waited till that water brought by the rain entered the dam reservoirs.
– All this shows that either Punjab state government or the central government should immediately institute an independent inquiry into the operation of Pong and Bhakra dams during 2023 SW Monsoon and fix accountability for the violations of Rule curves, Dam Safety Act, NDMA and CWC Guidelines.
An avoidable disaster? There is no doubt that if BBMB had operated the Bhakra and Pong dams keeping in mind the available information about the actual rainfall in the catchment areas of these dams, the extent of the damage could have been significantly reduced. To what extent the proportions of the flood disaster reduced is a matter of investigation. The claim by the BBMB chairman NL Sharma and secretary Satish Singla in an interview to Indian Express that they operated the dam prudently is clearly just a claim that needs independent investigation. Just to illustrate how absurdly the BBMB officials were claiming in that interview is clear from Mr Singla’s statement: “There is no flood situation. The flood was absorbed.” He is even denying the fact of the floods in Pubjab!
In the same interview, BBMB chairman says: “Between August 12 and 15, the Pong dam received a record 7.30 lakh cusec water.” This statement means that three days, Pong dam received 7.3 lakh cusecs of water. This clearly seems unlikely. Reports suggest that the peak of record 7.3 lakh cusecs inflow to Pong reservoir was touched on Aug 14, 2023. BBMB chairman also says that level of Bhakra dam on Aug 12 was 1666.67 ft, which is just 13.33 ft below the FRL. Was it not already a violation of rule curve? There were no heavy rains between Aug 1 and 14 and yet, the releases from Bhakra during the period were 41000 cusecs. This could have easily been higher even to follow the rule curve, to the extent that the higher flows would not have led to any floods.
BBMB chairman says, “Dams are ageing now. The higher the water level goes, the more danger there is to the dam structure.” Does that not apply to Pong dam? Why was the water level at Pong allowed to go up to 1400 ft when its FRL is 1390 feet? Did BBMB thus took unwarranted risk?
Does Punjab have disaster management plan? This episode also raises the issue if Punjab (& upstream Himachal Pradesh which too has been affected both in areas upstream and downstream from the dams) has a disaster management plan in place so that in the eventuality of releases of water from Bhakra and Pong dams, there is pre-emptive removal of the people from the affected areas in a orderly fashion before the releases start so that the loss and sufferings are minimised? The plan will have to be formulated and executed in coordination with BBMB among other agencies. The water releases in the first place should be below the carrying capacity of the rivers downstream from the dams. When the releases exceed the carrying capacity of the river, the inundation maps for each additional releases will identify the areas and people who would be in danger zone and will need to be temporarily relocated. From the way the whole episode has played out, and help of Army, BSF, IAF had to be taken, it does not seem that the state has such a plan and executive agencies in place.
Himachal Rainfall warranted action from Aug 9 If we look at the daily district wise rainfall information put out by IMD for 24 hrs ending at 0830 hours, we see that the rainfall had already started rising menacingly from Aug 10, which means essentially rainfall on Aug 9 itself.
– IMD reported rainfall on Aug 10 (Actual rainfall starting 0830 hrs on Aug 9) was 92% high for Bilaspur and 127% high in Hamirpur.
– IMD reported rainfall on Aug 11 was 21.8 mm, 166% higher than normal for entire Himachal Pradesh. Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Mandi and Una districts had over 50 mm rainfall for the 24 hrs ending at 0830 hrs on Aug 11.
– IMD reported rainfall on Aug 12 was 70% higher than normal for entire HP. This included high rainfall in these districts in the catchment of Sutlej river (on which Bhakra is built) and Beas river (on which Pong dam is built): Kangra: 51.8 mm, Mandi: 67.1 mm, Hamirpur: 44.5 mm, Solan 45.8 mm, Bilaspur: 22.9 mm.
– IMD reported rainfall on Aug 13 was 42% above normal across HP, including high rainfall in these distrcits: Hamirpur: 109.8 mm; Mandi: 87.6 mm; Bilaspur: 62.9 mm; Kangra: 40.8 mm; Solan: 45.6 mm.
It is clear from the above rainfall figures that there was sufficient information available to start advance release of water from Pong and Bhakra dam even from Aug 9 if not earlier, but BBMB authorities failed to take this information into account to start advance release of water from the dams. Bhakra dam was already 81% full and Pong was 75% full on Aug 11 as per CWC’s weekly reservoir level bulletin, indicating the need to start releases in view of high rainfall in catchment areas in Himachal Pradesh. This (non release of water from dams starting on Aug 9) clearly and hugely contributed to the floods that happened in Punjab due to sudden high releases starting from Aug 14. If timely and advance releases were started it could have hugely reduced the flood disaster in Punjab.
Next steps Firstly we need an independent investigation into the operation of Bhakra and Pong dams during the SW Monsoon 2023 including their daily levels, inflows and outflows with reference to their rule curves, Dam Safety Act norms and also NDMA and CWC guidelines since there is no doubt that it is due to these dams that the Punjab flood disaster of Aug 2023 happened. There is also urgent need to ensure that hourly information of the levels, inflows and outflows from these dams be put out in public domain and should remain in public domain for ten years at least. Thirdly, BBMB should be mandated to operate the dams taking into account the actual hourly rainfall information in the dam catchments. Fourthly, we need to have legally mandatory flood forecasting of these dams either by CWC or by any other independent organisation.
Punjab also needs to put in place a robust flood disaster management plan and implementing bodies, taking into account the carrying capacity of the rivers and in coordination with IMD, CWC and BBMB as also upstream Himachal Pradesh.
NDMA and CWC needs to reform Moreover, the Central Water Commission, India’s only agency involved in flood forecasting, does not monitor or forecast the floods due to Bhakra and Pong dams, two of the India’s biggest and oldest dams, reflecting total ad-hoc-ism in the way flood forecasting is done India. This ad-hoc-ism needs to immediately removed by bringing flood forecasting under the NDMA act and making such forecasting mandatory for all flood prone rivers. The National Disaster Management Authority, which is responsible for disaster management in India, is also majorly responsible for allowing not only ad-hoc-ism prevailing in flood forecasting in India, but also allowing violations indulged by dam operators across India and allowing it go unpunished. This also needs to urgently change.
SANDRP (ht.sandrp@gmail.com)
POST SCRIPT: 1. Aug 22 2023: Sources admitted that holding these hydropower projects, which have huge reservoirs, accountable for violation of the Dam Safety Act and showing sheer callousness towards the safety of people living downstream could invite strong legal action from the government. “We have sought legal opinion to seek damages from the power projects that had caused damage to property worth crores of rupees by releasing water, besides violating the Dam Safety Act,” said a senior government official.
Pong Dam: -Information not given: Information about inflow, outflow and gate operation between July 7 and 12 sought but compliance still awaited.
-Gaps: The early warning system not up to the mark. No inundation mapping and dam break analysis.
Pandoh Dam: -Data not provided: -The state government had requested the dam authorities to provide the inflow, outflow and gate operation data between July 7 and 12 but no compliance so far. This indifference invites action in line with the provisions of the Dam Safety Act for not sharing information.
Gaps: -The early warning system not up to the mark. Inundation mapping not updated. Danger level only partially marked up to Pandoh.
-CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has criticised the BBMB for “its highly irresponsible behaviour”, which has unleashed misery in the lives of people living downstream of the Pong Dam. Notices could be issued to all such hydroelectric projects in the next few days even if it leads to a protracted legal battle. He said, “The state government is of the firm opinion that these power producers cannot be allowed to go scot-free. They should be made to pay damages and foot the bill of the rescue operations conducted by the IAF and the NDRF, which the state government had to do.”
-The failure on the part of a majority of the dams to provide inflow, outflow and gate operation data to the Directorate of Energy, even after the flooding of several villages in Himachal and Punjab, reflects their indifference towards safety norms.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himachal/monsoon-fury-himachal-pradesh-to-seek-damages-from-erring-power-producers-537192
2. Aug 22 2023: Roorkee’s National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) advocates checking the flow of silt in the catchments and using inflow forecasting to plan controlled discharge for limiting the damage downstream.
– The Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) was blamed for the flooding of more than 150 villages in six districts last week, when it had discharged 1 lakh cusecs of water from the Pong dam and 80,000 cusecs from Bhakra on August 16 to bring these reservoirs to permissible levels. NIH’s surface water hydrology division head Anil Kumar Lohani said that: “Desilting the dams is a costly affair, so the BBMB needs a catchments treatment plan that includes planting trees in the zone to reduce soil erosion, which will solve siltation of the reservoirs.” Lohani said: “The projected amount of silt flowing into the dams is calculated at the design stage, but if it increases, the BBMB should make timely intervention to avoid lowering the reservoirs’ capacity. The dam controllers have protocols for alerting the downstream communities.”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/bbmb-advised-to-check-silt-flow-in-catchments-use-inflow-forecasting/articleshow/102925484.cms
3. Aug 23 2023: The Public Action Committee (PAC), a collective of civil society groups working on environmental issues in Punjab, has demanded a high-level and independent inquiry to ascertain whether a human error at the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) triggered the floods in Punjab since August 16. It also cited data on the inflow, outflow and water levels at major dams and said it raised serious concerns.
In its letter to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Union Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy Raj Kumar Singh, the PAC quoted a report from The Indian Express titled ‘Punjab floods: wake-up call that went unheeded | Dam authorities could’ve released water earlier but didn’t, says officer; BBMB head denies claim’ and said the committee has been “watching the flood situation in Punjab closely and we have been monitoring the data for inflow, outflow and water levels of major dams that affect Punjab.”
“Punjab has witnessed devastating floods multiple times within a month. Such disasters are very damaging to the life and property of its citizens and economy of the state. Public Action Committee Mattewara, Sutlej & Buddha Dariya is a group of civil society organizations working on environmental issues in Punjab… The data for Bhakhra and Pong dams which are responsible for regulating flow in Sutlej and Beas rivers respectively presents a very disturbing picture which indicates a very strong possibility of human error at BBMB for causing floods in Punjab from 16 Aug 2023,” the letter read.
It went on to say, “We analysed the Bhakra and Pong Dam data for the period 01 Aug 2023 – 17 Aug 2023 (the date till which it is available online as of now) from the online report titled Real Time Reservoir Information. There was extremely worrying increase in inflows from 12 Aug onwards in both Bhakra and Pong dams and no real corresponding increase in outflows despite high water levels in both the dams.”
The PAC said that meanwhile the outflow at Pong was reduced to around 18,000 cusecs from a much higher level just a few days back. “The trend between 12 Aug 2023 and 16 Aug 2023 indicates towards what looks like a grave human error of judgment at best or much worse a lackadaisical and inept handling of the situation by BBMB decision makers. The situation that was allowed to develop till 16 Aug apparently led to a sudden panic increase of outflows to 83,000 cusecs and 1,40,000 cusecs from Bhakhra and Pong respectively on 16 Aug morning which led to much higher volumes of water in Sutlej and Beas causing extensive breaches and flooding at various places in Punjab,” the PAC alleged.
4. By the end of July, the dam’s water level reached 1,375.59 feet, a mere 15 feet below its designated limit and 25 feet below its full reservoir capacity. With two more months of the rainy season ahead, dam authorities released water at a rate of 30,000 cusecs to 50,000 cusecs. The authorities gradually increased water release from 18,000 cusecs to 48,000 cusecs between August 1 and August 10. The dam’s water level was brought down from 1,375.59 feet on July 31 to 1,373.74 feet on August 10.
Between August 11 and August 15, the dam’s water level escalated from 1,374.20 feet to 1,399.65 feet, a rapid rise of over 25 feet in just four days, leaving the dam at full capacity. Despite the absence of much rain in the state in August, the dam authorities only released around 18,000 cusecs of water until August 14 morning, while the inflow into the dam stood at 5.13 lakh cusecs of water (up to August 14 morning). Subsequently, water release increased abruptly, reaching approximately 1.50 lakh cusecs over the next four days.
Speaking to The Indian Express on the condition of anonymity, a dam officer said that during the initial two weeks of August when rain activity was minimal in Punjab, the dam authorities could have responsibly released a substantial amount of water to create more space. However, they maintained higher water levels instead. This decision, coupled with the sudden rise in water levels, led to the flooding of 63 villages in the Doaba region and around 150 villages in the Majha region.
The water level should have been brought down to 1,363 feet during less rain in the state, the officer added. The catastrophic aftermath of these floods has spurred widespread criticism and anger directed at the BBMB authorities. Affected residents expressed dismay over the lack of proactive measures and the delay in releasing excess water during the initial rise in water levels. Experts and local leaders emphasised that maintaining an additional 10 feet of space (in the dam) during the recent rain in Himachal could have averted the severe downstream flooding. With affected individuals demanding accountability and a reevaluation of water management protocols, pressure is mounting on the BBMB authorities. Speaking to The Indian Express, an officer who did not want his name to be revealed said, “The BBMB authorities are now under significant pressure to review their decision-making processes and implement measures that prioritise public safety over maintaining water levels.”
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/punjab-floods-dam-bbmb-water-8901641/lite/
5. Aug 23 2023 Arun Sidana, chief engineer of Pong Dam, said, “There is no any such policy to maintain a particular water level of the dam during the monsoon as the accuracy of rain intensity cannot be predicted. The Beas river on which the dam is built has a capacity of carrying 2 lakh cusecs of water and the dam has never released beyond 1.49 lakh cusecs, which is much below the river’s carrying capacity. When we released water recently, there was no rain downstream,” he said, adding that more than a dam policy, there is a need to check encroachments on the river bed.
SANDRP 
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