Sukhna Interpretation Centre

Sukhna Lake

The water here is engineered. Sukhna was made in 1958 by damming the Sukhna Choe, a seasonal stream coming down from the Shivalik hills, and its three square kilometres are fed by rain rather than by a river. Silt nearly finished it: twenty-five square kilometres of catchment were acquired and put under vegetation, and in 1974 the choe was diverted to bypass the lake completely, which is now fed through three siltation pots instead. Worth knowing before you look at it. This reads as a Himalayan foothill lake, but every part of it was put there.