Hubbry Logo
search
logo
2170313

Sardar Sarovar Dam

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
Sardar Sarovar Dam

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a concrete gravity dam built on the Narmada River near the town of Kevadia, in Narmada District, in the Indian state of Gujarat. The dam was constructed to provide water and electricity to the Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation of the project on 5 April 1961. The project took form in 1979 as part of a development scheme funded by the World Bank through their International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to increase irrigation and produce hydroelectricity, using a loan of US$200 million. The construction for dam begun in 1987, but the project was stalled by the Supreme Court of India in 1995 in the backdrop of Narmada Bachao Andolan over concerns of displacement of people. In 2000–01 the project was revived but with a lower height of 111 meters under directions from the Supreme Court, which was later increased to 123 meters in 2006 and 139 meters in 2017. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is 1210 meters long. The dam was inaugurated in 2017 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The water level in the Sardar Sarovar Dam eventually reached its highest capacity at 138.7 metres on 15 September 2019.

As one of the 25 dams planned on river Narmada, the Sardar Sarovar Dam is the largest structure to be built. It is the second largest concrete dam in the world in terms of the volume of concrete used in its construction, after the Grand Coulee Dam across the Columbia River, US. It is a part of the Narmada Valley Project, a large hydraulic engineering project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation and hydroelectricity multi-purpose dams on the Narmada River. After a number of cases before the Supreme Court of India (1999, 2000, 2003), by 2014 the Narmada Control Authority had approved a series of changes in the final height and the associated displacement caused by the increased reservoir, from the original 80 m (260 ft) to a final 163 m (535 ft) from foundation. The project will irrigate 1.9 million hectare area, most of it in drought prone areas of Kutch and Saurashtra.

The dam's main power plant houses six 200 megawatts (MW) Francis pump-turbines to generate electricity and include a pumped-storage capability. Additionally, a power plant on the intake for the main canal contains five 50MW Kaplan turbine-generators. The total installed capacity of the power facilities is 1,450 MW. The tallest statue in the world, the Statue of Unity, faces the dam. This statue has been created as a symbol of tribute to Vallabhbhai Patel.

The dam is located in Gujarat's Narmada district and Kevadia village, on the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra. To the west of the dam, is Madhya Pradesh's Malwa plateau, where the Narmada river dissects the hills tracts and culminates in the Mathwar hills.

The dam is 1,210 meters long and stands 163 meters tall. The Sardar Sarovar reservoir has a gross capacity of 0.95 million hectares meter and live storage capacity of 0.586 million hectares meter (5860 hm³). It occupies an area of 37,000ha with an average length of 214 km and width of 1.7 km. The river catchment area above the dam site is 88,000 square kilometers. It has a spillway discharging capacity of 87,000 cubic meters a second. This dam is one case study to learn about Integrated River Basin Planning, Development and Management.

The reservoir operation in the catchment area during the monsoons (from July to October) is well synchronized with the rain forecast. The River Bed Power House (RPBH) is responsible for strategically maximizing the annual allocation of water share. It ensures that minimum water flows downstream, and maximum water is used in the dam overflow period (generally in Monsoons). In non-monsoon months, RPBH takes measures to minimize the conventional and operational losses, avoiding water storage, restricting water intensive perennial crops, adoption of underground pipelines, proper maintenance of canals, related structures and operation of canals on a rotational basis.

This project was envisioned by the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of this project in 1961. A thorough survey was carried out by his government to study the usage of the Narmada River which flows through states of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to the Arabian Sea.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.