{"id":345802,"date":"2025-09-06T18:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=345802"},"modified":"2025-09-06T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T13:00:13","slug":"why-punjab-keeps-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-punjab-keeps-flooding\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Punjab Keeps Flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>News:<\/strong> Punjab is experiencing one of the worst floods. The state government has declared all 23 districts as flood-hit.<\/p>\n<h2>Reasons behind Punjab Keeps Flooding<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>1. Punjab\u2019s Geography:<\/strong>\u00a0Punjab has three big rivers (<strong>Ravi, Beas, Sutlej<\/strong>) and some small ones (Ghaggar &amp; <em>choes<\/em>). In the monsoon, heavy rains make these rivers overflow. Punjab has <strong>earthen walls (bundhs)<\/strong> to stop floods, but they often break when the rain is too much.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>2. Excessive Rainfall: <\/strong>In August,<strong> very heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh caused the Beas River to swell<\/strong>, with inflows of 50,000 to 55,000 cusecs, which flooded Kapurthala, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Fazilka, and Hoshiarpur.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>By mid-August, the Ravi River also swelled because of rainfall in Himachal and Jammu &amp; Kashmir.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">At the same time, <strong>southern Punjab\u2019s Malwa region received heavy rainfall,<\/strong> which led to severe waterlogging in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Ropar, Nawanshahr, and Moga.<\/li>\n<li>The IMD has reported that <strong>Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu &amp; Kashmir have each recorded more than 45% above-normal rainfall this year<\/strong>, significantly exceeding the seasonal average.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>3. Role of Dams:<\/strong> Punjab\u2019s rivers are <strong>controlled by three major dams: Bhakra on the Sutlej, Pong on the Beas, and Thein or Ranjit Sagar on the Ravi.<\/strong> These dams store water for <strong>irrigation &amp; electricity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">When reservoirs fill beyond safe limits due to heavy rainfall, <strong>dam authorities are compelled to release water to prevent overtopping,<\/strong> which could lead to catastrophic consequences.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">The <strong>Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB)<\/strong> regulates storage and release <strong>through a \u201crule curve,\u201d<\/strong> which is based on hydrological data and weather forecasts. However, during extreme rainfall, sudden releases become unavoidable.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">This year, <strong>inflows into the Pong Dam were nearly 20% higher than in 2023,<\/strong> marking an unprecedented rise. The <strong>Bhakra Dam<\/strong> too experienced very high inflows.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" data-start=\"3913\" data-end=\"3956\"><strong>4. Weak Embankments and Illegal Mining:<\/strong> Punjab\u2019s dhussi bundhs, or earthen embankments are <strong>often in poor condition and collapse<\/strong> during heavy flooding. <strong>Illegal sand mining has further weakened them.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" data-start=\"3913\" data-end=\"3956\"><strong>5. Governance Gaps:<\/strong> Punjab has long complained that the BBMB focuses more on <strong>power generation and irrigation than on flood safety.<\/strong> The problem l<strong>ies in poor coordination, lack of transparency in dam operations, failure to maintain a flood cushion and late warnings.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News: Punjab is experiencing one of the worst floods. The state government has declared all 23 districts as flood-hit. Reasons behind Punjab Keeps Flooding 1. Punjab\u2019s Geography:\u00a0Punjab has three big rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) and some small ones (Ghaggar &amp; choes). In the monsoon, heavy rains make these rivers overflow. Punjab has earthen walls (bundhs)&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-punjab-keeps-flooding\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Punjab Keeps Flooding<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,11209,12039],"tags":[11872,10500],"class_list":["post-345802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-geography-in-news","category-knolls","tag-9pm-daily-factly","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}