Panjnad Barrage
Panjnad Barrage or Panjnad Headworks is located in Bahawalpur District, Punjab, Pakistan. This headwork is one of the largest barrages in Punjab. Construction of headworks on the river Chenab and Sutlej began in 1922 under the Sutlej Valley Project, completed in 1932.
The Barrage has three canals, namely the Panjnad Canal, Abbasia Canal, and Abbasia Link Canal, which have a combined design discharge of 14,433 cusecs. Abbasia Canal and Panjand Canal were constructed from Head Panjnad and later New Abbasia Canal. Which irrigates a wide area of Cholistan including the Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan districts. Beyond the barrage, the Chenab is also called the Panjnad River. There is a small one-room museum near Head Panjnad.
It has a designed discharge capacity of .45 million cusecs of water, which was later increased to .7 million cusecs. The Barrage pond area falls in Tehsil Alipur and Tehsil Ahmedpur East. The road bridge at Panjnad Barrage is utilized by traffic coming to and from Sindh.
The Barrage has a gross command area of 1.81 million acres and provides irrigation supplies to a cultivated command area of 1.62 million acres. In 2018, a mega rehabilitation project was started at the Barrage with the collaboration of the Asian Development Bank, costing around Rs 4.5 billion and taking 3 years to complete, resulting in an increased discharge capacity from .7 million cusecs to .86 million cusecs.