The Cracked Wall of Panchet

An incident where a massive flow of water from a dam, ironically blocks the supply of water and electricity in Pune for a considerable period. Indeed, this day in 1961 came up with many casualties that completely changed the weather of the city.

A Boon or a Bane; Image Source - Dhanbad

After sustaining a dark and stormy night, Pune was not ready to bear another wrath of the furious storm that awaited in the southwestern tributary of Mutha River. One couldn't even imagine that there was already a dam getting ready only to be swollen up with water, even before the construction could have been completed. Yet the city slept with leaking walls, but there were few Army Jawans near the Panchet Dam, who stayed up the whole night, to stop the flow of water and, deploy cement and sandbags on the coast.

All their efforts went into the drain as the dam walls cracked and burst out with a massive flow of water on the very next morning. It swept away approximately 2000 lives while relocating at least 1,00,000 people to safe places. Although it took some time for the flood water to settle down, it engulfed almost everything that came in its way, including another dam of the city named Khadakwasla.

Panchet Dam was constructed in the late 1950s to improve the drinking water supply and irrigation facility of the city, along with three other dams located nearby, Varasgaon, Temghar and Khadakwasla.

Meanwhile, the people were kept on high alert and were being rescued by allotted disaster teams, but there was a big problem on standby. The two main dams completely drowned in water, brought a serious power cut, and almost exhausted the water supply in the city that stayed for a long period of time.

The extent of the losses was so gigantic that both, lives lost and properties destroyed took more than a month to restore everything. New localities were formed for the people who lost their valuables, and bridges were repaired that fell victim to the floodwater. The southwest coast of Pune was definitely not the same anymore.

However, all the enlisted casualties wouldn't have even happened, if the construction of the dam didn't go too far from how it was originally planned. It is said that during the post-independence period, the incessant construction of dams as a part of development projects was uncanny for it was even called 'modern temples'. The authoritative pressure and influence were therefore in full swing.

Recalling the tragedy, the, then, Deputy Engineer of Panchet Dam project, Mr. Deshmukh told DNA, "Ideally, the arch of the conduit should have been made from RCC. However, in those days, steel was in short supply and we were forced to use concrete blocks instead.''

It was thereby, ascertained that in the case of Panchet dam, it was the consequence of not using the right material in its construction, that turned out to be a bane as far as development was concerned. Only if it was girded with steel as planned, the blocks used could have been concrete enough to not burst out in just one year of this unfinished construction.

Clearly, to hasten the project, the construction work was induced with a flaw that resulted in some serious consequences, as discussed. With a number of lives and their livelihood affected due to such faulty technicalities, the loss remains irreparable. This, however, moved everyone from its feet and imparted an important lesson to work on this credibility gap and avoid such system failures that led the country to face such an unfortunate series of events.