Live storage in Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam reservoir crosses 30%

Vadodara/Gandhinagar:

The water level of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Dam reservoir, the lifeline of Gujarat’s water supply, has seen a rise of over 12 meters around a fortnight and has reached 123.16meter by 12pm today which is more than a meter above the old over-flow mark of 121.92 meter and it still rising constantly.

The live storgae in the all important reservoir, which apart from irrigation fuliflls the drinking and other household needs of around half of Gujarat’s population (3 crore), has also crossed 30% mark.

Notably the new overflow mark of the dam after installation of sluice gates last year is 138.48meter.

It has seen a rise of over 12 meters in last 17 days and is still rising indicating a complete end of water-woes of Gujarat this season.

The water level is still rising due to rain in the catchment area of river Narmada in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and increased inflow. However a senior official of the SSNNL said that the gates of the dam won’t be opened below 130meter.

According to the Narmada project’s control room in Vadodara, the water level which had started rising from 5am of August 17 when it was 111.08 meters has reached 123.16m at 12pm today afternoon. The inflow was 40664 cuses while the outflow was only 4863 cuses. So the water level was rising. Notably the new overflow height of the dam reservoir 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 last year.
The minimum level for functioning of the river bed as well as canal bed hydel units is 110.64 meters below which the storage in the reservoir becomes dead.
Today at 12 pm the live storage was 1790.49 million cubic meters (MCM) which against total live capacity of 5845.87MCM was over 30.5% of it. The storage on August 18 at 1pm was only 341.66 MCM. It has seen a substanitial over five fold rise despite release of water to Tappar, Dholi Dwaja and Machhu-2 dams also aprart from supply for other routine purposes.

However despite rise in level, for appropriate water storage the river-bed hydoro electric unit has not been started and only one of the five units of canal bed hydel unit was on. Yesterday two units of the canal bed hydel unit were running but one was closed late night. 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.

DeshGujarat