The banks of Sutlej at Tattapani were supposed to be submerged under water because of construction of the Kol Dam reservoir last year, but some technical delay has postponed the project by a year.

The dam is coming up in Sundernagar in Mandi district and its reservoir would stretch till Tattapani.

The natural hot water sulphur springs have attracted tourists in hordes to this place.

Interestingly, unlike oustees of dams in other states who lead agitations against land acquisition drives, the local residents here are willingly ready to move out to their new farmlands and homes constructed with the rehabilitation package they received.

Lallan Gupta, a lawyer in Delhi, visits his native place in Tattapani every year on this day. “My relatives in the village have very well accepted the fact that the existing shelter might go any day,” he says.

For over a century, the place has attracted hundreds of devotees from Rampur, Mandi, Kullu, Shimla, Solan and Bilaspur.

This year, the occasion was even more special as the pious banks had got another lease of life, if only for a year, which many attributed to “heavenly intervention”.