Panjnad Headworks is a gated barrage on the Panjnad River about twelve kilometres north of Uch Sharif in Bahawalpur Division, Punjab, Pakistan, situated just below the confluence of the Chenab River and the Sutlej River where the five rivers of historic Punjab merge. The barrage supplies irrigation water to Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan districts through the Panjnad, Abbassia and Abbassia Link canals and also moderates flood flows at the tail end of the Chenab system.
History
Panjnad Headworks construction began in 1927 under executive engineer James L. Roy and it was part of the British era Sutlej Valley Project.
In August 1973, inflow exceeded eight hundred thousand cubic feet per second and authorities breached the left marginal bund to protect the gates, inundating large parts of Bahawalpur Division.
In August 2018, structural deterioration led to closure of the road bridge after inspectors declared it dangerous. The rebuilt dual-carriage bridge reopened on fourteen August 2020, restoring a key section of the national highway between Karachi and Lahore. A feasibility study in 2015 proposed enlarging the structure to forty seven operating bays and raising capacity to roughly eight hundred sixty five thousand cubic feet per second at an estimated cost of Rs 18.158 billion financed by the Asian Development Bank. Major rehabilitation began in November 2018: three new spillways were added, canal head regulators were strengthened and climate resilience features were built into the foundations. Project documents list the ultimate design flood as eight hundred sixty five thousand cubic feet per second.
Irrigation network
Two primary canals were taken off from the left bank when the barrage opened. The Panjnad Canal is fifty five miles long with a design capacity of nine thousand five hundred sixty seven cubic feet per second irrigating about one million four hundred fifty five thousand acres, while the Abbassia Canal is forty three miles long designed for one thousand thirty two cubic feet per second.
Tourism
The headworks is a popular riverside picnic spot where visitors observe the merging waters of the five rivers that give Punjab its name, and the site features in regional folklore and Sufi poetry.