Beas tragedy:HC wants to know steps taken on Mandi DC's report

The Himachal Pradesh High Court today directed the state government to file a status report on steps taken by the authorities on the inquiry report submitted by Mandi Divisional Commissioner Onkar Sharma following the drowning of 24 students from a Hyderabad-based engineering college and a tour operator in the Beas river.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir and Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan asked the state government to file the status report by June 24, when the matter would be take up for further hearing.
The high court had taken suo motu cognisance of news reports after the 24 students, including six girls, of VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology in Hyderabad and their tour leader were swept away in the river on June 8 after sudden release of water from the reservoir of the Larji hydro-power project near Thalot.

So far the rescue agencies have recovered the bodies of 12 students ans searches are on for the rest.
As per the inquiry report submitted in the high court by the Mandi Divisional Commissioner, the discharge of water from the barrage was raised (by the operating staff of Larji dam) from 20 cumecs (cubic metre per second) at 6 PM to 50 cumecs at 6.15 PM.
The water release was subsequently raised to 150 cumecs by 6.45 PM and then to 450 cumecs at 7 PM.
The report said there was no need to discharge 300 cumecs additional water and it appears that the official on duty at the Barrage Control Room failed to assess the accumulation of water and its quantity.

"It was not an ordinary phenomenon that water level in the reservoir started touching the bridge on the Beas river at Aut and entered the houses of people living near the barrage," the report said, pointing out the carelessness of the Arbitration and Maintenance Division.