Bhakra Board Hiding Data Amid Heavy Monsoon & Flood Apprehension

While the pre-monsoon showers in Panjab were deficit, once monsoon came last week, it came with fury. The Indian Meteorological Department issued a yellow alert in 11 districts. This week there are reports of bridges being swept away, railway lines breaking, and flooding from neighboring states. This evokes concerns about floods in Panjab like in 2023. The Panjab-based civil rights and environmental group Political Action Committee exposed the role of the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMP) in the floods last year. Between 12-16 Aug 2023, there was a huge inflow of water in the Bhakra Dam reservoir. However, the outflow of water was even lesser than normal days. This created a huge amount of extra water in the reservoir which was released in large amounts for the next few days causing flooding in the river Satluj. In December 2023 Jaskirat Singh from PAC said, ‘A few months back, we had investigated and shared charts of Sutlej, Beas, Bhakra Dam and Pong Dam water data in the aftermath of floods in Punjab. That data indicated with great clarity that human error that led to those floods and they could have been avoided.’ When pointed out last year, BBMP hid the data which is a violation of citizen’s right to information. This year again, the BBMP has hidden the data. Singh says, ‘The website shows errors from the last many months. This data should not be hidden as it shows the exact situation and makes decision making easier for everyone.’ PAC appeals to everyone including govt. and administration to push BBMP to declare the live data.