"Bhakra Nangal Project is something tremendous something stupendous, something which shakes you up when you see it. Bhakra, the new temple of resurgent India, is the symbol of India’s progress"
Jawaharlal Nehru

The idea of putting up a storage dam across the Satluj for irrigating the arid areas of Northern India originated in 1908 by Sir Louis Dane, the then Lt. Governor of Punjab after a tour from Shimla down the Satluj to Ropar, when he saw a leopard jumping across the virgin Bhakra Gorge.