By: Express News ServiceSeptember 20, 2025 10:18 PM IST 3 min readAt that time, over 2 lakh cusecs of water was released into the Ravi after the level in the Ranjit Sagar dam was at its maximum capacity.The Punjab government has suspended three officers, including an executive engineer, in connection with the collapse of two floodgates at the Madhopur barrage in Pathankot district last month amid heavy rain and floods in the state, officials Saturday said.The damage to the headworks had aggravated the flood situation downstream. Officials who had reached the site to manually open the gates were trapped and one of them was washed away while the others were airlifted.Executive engineer Nitin Sood (Gurdaspur Canal and Ground Water Division), sub-divisional officer Arun Kumar and junior engineer Sachin Thakur have been placed under suspension, as per official orders issued by Principal Secretary, Water Resources Department, Krishan Kumar, on September 15. All three have been transferred to the Chief Engineer Headquarters in Chandigarh, a government statement said.On August 27, two out of the 54 floodgates at the Madhopur headworks failed during an operation to release excess water following a heavy inflow into the Ravi River. A team of officials reached the site to manually open the floodgates during which two gates gave way, trapping the officials while washing away a chargeman. The water inundated scores of villages, submerged acres of agriculture land, and put a question mark on the performance of the departments concerned. The trapped officials were airlifted.At that time, over 2 lakh cusecs of water was released into the Ravi after the level in the Ranjit Sagar dam was at its maximum capacity.Sources said an inquiry was ordered by the administrative secretary into the case, which indicted three engineers for negligence. Even since the government has been under attack for not maintaining the headworks and not carrying out a drill to check the functioning of the gates.Water resources minister Barinder Kumar Goyal had issued a notice to a private company for wrongly certifying the strength of the Mahodhpur headworks gates. He had said that the company, engaged in 2024 to assess the headworks gates, wrongly certified them as capable of withstanding 6.25 lakh cusecs of water. “After conducting the requisite surveys and site visits, your agency submitted a flood routing report dated December 26, 2024, wherein it was stated that a discharge of 6.25 lakh cusecs could be safely passed through Madhopur headworks,” read the government notice to the firm.Story continues below this adGoyal had said that the gates failed to manage even half the certified capacity, leading to their collapse and the tragic death of a department employee.However, the company, Level9 Biz Private Limited, later refuted the government’s charges, saying that “assessing the health of the barrage’s structure was never its scope of work”.“…only estimate for design flood review (in) relation to the original design flood of Madhopur barrage was to be carried out after collection of original hydrological data/studies, G&D (gauging and discharge) data, salient features, basic barrage data/information and review of the same,” it had said in its reply to the state government.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Punjab