Polavaram Project
| Polavaram Dam | |
|---|---|
Polavaram Right canal near Eluru
|
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| Location | Polavaram, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India |
| Coordinates | 17°15′40″N 81°39′23″E / 17.26111°N 81.65639°ECoordinates: 17°15′40″N 81°39′23″E / 17.26111°N 81.65639°E |
| Purpose | Irrigation, Power |
| Status | under construction |
| Construction began | 2004 |
| Opening date | 2019. |
| Operator(s) | Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Department |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Type of dam | Concrete spill way (754 m), Non over flow masonry dam (560 m) & Earth dam (1600 m) |
| Impounds | Godavari River |
| Height | 39.28 m (129 ft) up to top of earth dam above the lowest river bed. |
| Length | 2,914 m (9,560 ft) |
| Spillway type | Ogee section |
| Spillway capacity | 5,000,000 cusecs at 140 ft msl |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Polavaram Reservoir |
| Total capacity | 194 tmcft at FRL 150 ft msl |
| Active capacity | 175 tmcft (at 25.4 m msl crest level of spillway) |
| Inactive capacity | 19 tmcft (below 25.4 m msl) |
| Catchment area | 307,800 km2 (118,800 sq mi) |
| Surface area | 600 km2 (230 sq mi) |
| Maximum water depth | 32.08 m at FRL 150 ft msl |
| Power station | |
| Operator(s) | APGENCO |
| Turbines | 12 × 80MW Francis-type (left bank side) |
| Installed capacity | 960 MW (under construction) |
Polavaram Project is a multi-purpose irrigation project which has been accorded national project status by the central government. This dam across the Godavari River is under construction located in West Godavari District and East Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh state and its reservoir spreads in parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha States also.
National River-Linking Project, which works under the aegis of the Indian Ministry of Water Resources, was designed to overcome the deficit in water in the country. As a part of this plan, surplus water from the Himalayan rivers is to be transferred to the peninsular rivers of India. This exercise, with a combined network of 30 river-links and a total length of 14,900 kilometres (9,300 mi) at an estimated cost of US$120 billion (in 1999), would be the largest ever infrastructure project in the world. In this project's case, the Godavari river basin is considered as a surplus one, while the Krishna River basin is considered to be a deficit one. As of 2008, 644 tmcft of underutilised water from Godavari River flowed into the Bay of Bengal. But as of 2017 over 3000 tmcft are drained unutilised into Bay of Bengal. Based on the estimated water requirements in 2025, the Study recommended that sizeable surplus water was to be transferred from the Godavari River basin to the Krishna River basin.
In July 1941, the first conceptual proposal for the project came from the erstwhile Madras Presidency. Later Diwan Bahadur L. Venkatakrishna Iyer, then chief engineer in the Presidency's irrigation department, made the first survey of the project site and made a definitive proposal for a reservoir at Polavaram. Sri Iyer not only visioned cultivation of 350,000 acres (140,000 ha) over two crop seasons through this project, but also planned for a 40 megawatt hydroelectric plant within the project. The entire project was estimated to cost about ₹65 million (US$1.0 million). The old final designs of Polavaram dam was planned at full reservoir level (FRL) 208 ft MSL (Mean Sea Level) with 836 tmcft gross storage capacity and 150 MW hydroelectric plant. By 1946–47, the estimated cost rose to ₹1.29 billion. It was named the "Ramapada Sagar Project" since the backwaters of the reservoir would touch the Lord Rama temple at Bhadrachalam. In the old finalised project design by Dr. K.L. Rao, the right bank canal of Polavaram project was extended to south of Krishna River to serve irrigation needs in old Guntur district by envisaging aqueduct across the Krishna River.
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