ExplainedPower
BBMB power sharing explained: how Himachal won 45 years of dues, paid in electricity
The Supreme Court has ordered Punjab and Haryana to clear Himachal's arrears from the Bhakra and Beas projects with 11,973 million units of power over 20 years. Who owns these dams, why Himachal has a share, and what is still unsettled.
The short answer
The Bhakra Beas Management Board runs the Bhakra, Pong and Dehar hydropower projects, whose power is shared among Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. In 2011 the Supreme Court held that Himachal, as a successor state to old Punjab, was owed a 7.19% share going back to 1966, but Punjab and Haryana never paid the arrears for 1966 to 2011. The court has now settled them in kind: Himachal gets 11,973 million units of electricity over 20 years instead of cash.
What is the BBMB?
It is a central body that runs the big dams and power stations on the Sutlej and the Beas. The Bhakra Beas Management Board was created under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, which reorganised the old state of Punjab. It took over the Bhakra-Nangal project in October 1967 and got its present name in 1976, when the Beas works were added.
Today it operates the Bhakra Dam on the Sutlej, the Pong Dam on the Beas, both in Himachal, and the Dehar power house fed by the Beas-Sutlej link, with a combined capacity of about 2,900 MW. The board works under the Union Ministry of Power, and its water and electricity go to Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal, Delhi and Chandigarh.
Why does Himachal have a share at all?
Because the 1966 reorganisation made it a successor state of old Punjab. Its case was that, like Punjab and Haryana, it inherited a stake in the projects built by the undivided state. Both the Bhakra and Pong dams stand on its soil.
For three decades the claim got nowhere. In 1996 Himachal filed an original suit in the Supreme Court, the kind of case one state can bring directly against others or the Centre.
What did the court decide in 2011?
It gave Himachal a 7.19% share, backdated to the start. In its decree of September 27, 2011, the Supreme Court fixed the shares of the successor states at 51.80% for Punjab, 37.51% for Haryana, 7.19% for Himachal and 3.50% for Chandigarh, leaving Rajasthan’s separate share largely as it was.
Himachal’s entitlement ran from November 1, 1966, for Bhakra, November 1977 for Dehar and January 1978 for Pong. From November 1, 2011, the BBMB began giving the state its share of current power. The past was another matter.
Why did the arrears go unpaid for 15 years?
Because the states could not agree on what the old power was worth. The Ministry of Power worked out that Himachal had been denied 13,066 million units between November 1966 and October 2011, an amount Punjab and Haryana were to share roughly 60:40. Turning units into rupees meant agreeing on a price per unit, and no price satisfied everyone. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu put the state’s pending dues at about ₹4,200 crore in July.
The deadlock broke when the Centre suggested skipping money altogether. At a hearing on July 30, 2026, Attorney General R Venkataramani told the bench that relying on the 1966 Act alone would never produce a settlement. “Something has to be done,” he said. Under the proposal, Himachal would also not have to pay about ₹420 crore it owed the two states or over ₹400 crore in capital costs.
Haryana agreed in principle. Punjab objected, calling a rate of ₹2.5 a unit too high and saying it would lose about ₹2,000 crore. The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was blunt: “there is a decree of the court and it has to be followed.”
What has the court now ordered?
A cashless settlement: 11,973 million units of power over 20 years. Punjab and Haryana will supply the electricity from BBMB projects instead of paying cash. Punjab wanted the units spread over 30 years, Himachal over 10, and the Attorney General had suggested 15; the court chose 20.
That works out to about 600 million units a year on average. Advocate General Anup Kumar Rattan said the state will draw the power between October and March, when market prices are usually higher, so that it can sell its surplus at better rates.
What is it worth to Himachal?
Somewhere between ₹500 crore and ₹800 crore a year, depending on the price. Rattan estimated ₹600 crore to ₹800 crore a year at about ₹10 a unit, or roughly ₹15,000 crore over two decades. Sukhu gave a more cautious figure of almost ₹500 crore a year at ₹6 a unit. For a state with few sources of revenue beyond its rivers, a point the court itself made in July, either sum matters.
A dispute 60 years in the making
- Nov 1, 1966Punjab reorganised; Himachal's entitlement to Bhakra power begins
- 1996Himachal files suit in the Supreme Court
- Sep 27, 2011Court fixes Himachal's share at 7.19%
- Nov 1, 2011BBMB starts supplying Himachal's current share
- Jul 30, 2026Centre proposes settling arrears in power
- Nov 2026Court orders 11,973 MU over 20 years
Is the dispute over?
The arrears case is, but Himachal has other claims. Sukhu said the state will now press for a water cess on hydropower projects and for the return of the Shanan hydel project at Jogindernagar in Mandi, which Punjab runs. “Our fight is not over yet,” he said on November 6.
The opposition BJP welcomed the ruling but said governments of all parties had pursued the case since 1996. How smoothly Punjab and Haryana hand over the units will decide how quickly the 2011 decree is finally honoured, as of November 2026.
The documents
- CERC order in Petition No. 72/GT/2021 (BBMB tariff), project capacities and beneficiary sharesCentral Electricity Regulatory Commission, January 1, 2021