Water level in Sardar Sarovar Naramada dam, up by over 3 meters in 21 days

Gandhinagar: With the onset of somewhat untimely summer in ‘water-scarce’ Gujarat which is reeling under unusually high temperatures in the first week of April, there is a good news for Gujaratis and especially those around 3 crore of them who completely depend for their water needs on Narmada Dam Reservoir in Kevadiya which is also known as the lifeline of water supply in this western state.

The water level of this big reservoir has seen an unusual increase of over 3 meters (3.37meters to be precise) in last just 21 days.

According to the official data provided by the Narmada flood control unit in Vadodara, the water level at 8 am has increased to 119.38 meters from 116.01 meters at the same time on March 16 when it started rising mostly due to increase in inflow due to running of hydel power generation units at IndiraSagar dam in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. Since then the water level is more or less continuously rising. Today the inflow was 6780 cusec and the outflow was 5079 cuses and there was a snail paced increase in the water level. In last 24 hours there has been 2 cm rise in water level.

Due to rise in the water level the 2 units of the canal head power house in Kevadaiya were also generating power for the past 24 hours.

An official of the SSNNL said that there was enough water for meeting the drinking and other domestic needs of the around 167 towns and more than 10000 villages that depend on our water supply though out the summer and till the arrival of next monsoon.

Notably, the dam’s main power plant ie river bed one houses six 200 MW Francis pump-turbines to generate electricity and include a pumped-storage capability. Additionally, a power plant on the intake for the main canal ie canal bed contains five 50 MW Kaplan turbine-generators. The total installed capacity of the power facilities is 1,450 MW.

The overflow mark if the dam situated in Kevadiya in Narmada district in Central Guajrat has been raised from 121.92 to 138.48 after the installation and closure of 30 sluice gates in 2017.