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| Saturday, July 12, 2003 |
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PROVIDER of power and water. A home for over 1 lakh migratory birds and thousands of fish and a tourist destination too. This is Beas dam or the Pong Dam, as it is popularly known. Located on the Punjab and Himachal Pradesh border with its waters extending up to Dehra in Kangra, it is a one-stop destination in the region. It was on June 30 in 1974 that the dam on the Beas river was completed. Since then the dam has transformed the economy of the region and helped agriculture grow. The day(June 30) is celebrated as Beas Divas every year. Recently, the dam was declared an international wetland. When the
132.6-metre-high earthen dam (dams are also made of concrete) was
completed, it was the highest in Asia. It was completed by a dedicated
band of 15,000 workers and 1000 engineers and technicians. |
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The dam irrigates about 1.6 lakh hectares in the northern region and Pong Power House generates on an average about 1700 million units annually. Thanks to so many birds coming to the reservoir, it has recently been declared an international wetland and is called Ramsar Site. The reservoir is famous for its varieties of fish, especially the mahaseer and singhara. About 100 tonne of mahaseer is netted from the reservoir, with the total output of fish touching 400 tonnes — the highest catch at one spot in this country. The dam also provides water for irrigation to far off places in Rajasthan. I still remember when I met one of the fellow engineers for a briefing in my initial years. On seeing me, he blurted: "Tu veeh aithey aa gaya`85hun tan fas gaya. Das-vihee saal tere aithey he bitan ge." (Oh you have also arrived here. You have been trapped and now ten to twenty years of your career will be spent here). All my excitement of that day to work on the prestigious project evaporated. Officers hailing from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal run the operations of the dam. Going down memory lane, I can recall the days of hardship when the dam was being built. Then the construction site was swarmed with a fleet of heavy earthmoving equipment. I used to be wonderstruck by the speed with which work was carried out even in the dead of night and that too under hazardous circumstances. The severe cold would further numb the mind. The noise of the machines and equipment, deployed for the construction of embankment, resembled the background music of a horror movie. Every worker, engineer and even the machines, however, were totally involved in the mission. And the benefits now are there for everyone to see. The writer is Chief
Engineer, Beas Dam, BBMB.
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