Regulation of waters of rivers ravi, beas and sutlej

At the time of partition of India in 1947,20% of the canal system of Punjab came to India against 50% of population. In order to restore the balance and to obviate perpetual devastation causedby uncontrolled floods during monsoons and to get rid of misery of famines caused by draughts during lean periods, Bhakra Nangal Project on river Sutlej was taken up. Inspired by the success of Bhakra Nanga/Project and consequent to signing of Indus Water Treaty according to which, waters of Ravi, Beas and Sulfej were aflotted to India (or its exclusive use, ‘Beas Sutlej Link'and ‘Beas Dam’ were constructed to harness the waters of river Bas. With the completion of Ranjit Sagar Dam on river Ravi, complete harnessing of Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers has been accomplished. Five million hectares of lands in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan are being irrigated with about 35000 million cubic meters of irrigation water being supplied from these projects. The resulting Green Revolution has turned the Northern States of India into the Granary of the Nation contributing enormously to the national pool of food-grains. Bhakra Beas Management Board which is charged with the responsibility of regulation of the waters of Ravi, Beas and Sutlej -an awe inspiring assignment -is engaged in this task in right earnest. The regulation process involves assimifation of decision support data, decision making, implementing of decisions on day to day basis and modernisation of the system to achieve continuous improvements in operation of reservoirs. At present these functions are being carried out by collecting data from remote sites distributed in the catchment areas by manual means. BBMB has planned to develop real time decision support syslem for catchments of Sutlej and Beas and at supply points to states. The paper attempts to bring out these aspects.