Vadodara: The water level of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Dam reservoir, known as the life-line of water supply in Gujarat, has gone above 136 meter mark for the first time.

The water level had touched 135 meters mark on September 2, 134 m on August 27 and 133 meters on August 20 after almost continuous rise with slight fluctuations and occasional lowering due to opening of gates.

According to the official information received from the Narmada flood control office here the water level was 136.10 meters at 12 pm today. It reached 136.00 m at 12 pm yesterday for the first time.

The inflow at 12 today pm is 376974 cusec and outflow considerably less at 254890 cusec. The water level is rising.

Notably, after installation and closure of 30 gates on the dam in 2017, its maximum height increased from 121.92m to 138.68 m.

CM Vijay Rupani had recently said that Gujarat did not need any permission from the Narmada Command Authority for filling the dam reservoir up to the maximum level. It is trying to do so slowly and cautiously keeping in view all the technical aspects.

. The live storage of water in the reservoir that supplies drinking water to over 3 crore or more than half of the population living in 167 towns and more than 10 thousand villages of this state, was 4952 Million Cubic Meter (MCM) which was almost 86% of total live storage capacity. The Gross storage at 8652 MCM was 90.50% of total gross storage capacity.

13 of the 30 gates of the dam were opened up to 1.3m to discharge the water on the downstream side of the river.

Notably, the gates were opened for the first time in the morning of August 9 this year to release water even as the water level in its reservoir touched a record all time high of that time at 131.45 m due to heavy inflow caused by heavy to very heavy rain in the catchment areas of river Narmada.

Due to the discharge of water in river from the reservoir, all the six units of the river bed hydel power production system which have been started after two years are operational today as well. It 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. Four of these were currently operational .The total installed capacity of the power facilities is 1,450 MW.

During earlier two years the highest level of the dam achieved was 130.75 reached on September 25, 2017.

DeshGujarat