Chandigarh, Sept. 4 -- Owing to incessant rainfall in the catchment of the river Sutlej, the water level in the Bhakra Dam reservoir, Gobind Sagar Lake, on Wednesday rose to 1,678.45 feet, just 1.5 feet short of its maximum filling capacity of 1,680 feet, forcing the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) to increase the discharge. This comes amid Punjab's request to curtail the release.

As per renewed releases from Wednesday, BBMB has started releasing 75,000 cusecs from Bhakra Dam, out of which 38,000 cusecs is from the penstocks for generating power in the turbines and 37,000 cusecs from the floodgates at the top of the dam. On Tuesday, 56,000 cusecs was released from the dam.

On Wednesday, during the technical committee meeting with th...