Important dams in India

The Tehri Dam at Tehri in Uttarakhand which lies on the Bhagirathi River in India holds the rank
of highest dam in India and one of the tallest dams in World. The Tehri Dam was built in the year
2006 with 1000 MW of hydro power generation capacity. Its water is also used in the Municipal
water supply and in irrigation works in the state of Uttarakhand. The Tehri dam is a 855 ft high rock
and its length is 1886 ft, crest width of 66 ft and base width of 3701 ft which creates 2.6 cubic km of
reservoir.

The Bhakra dam is across the Sutlej River. It was described as New Temple of Resurgent India
by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who was the first prime minister of independent India. The Bhakra Dam
is in the village of Bhakra in Himachal Pradesh of India. It was built in the year 1963. There is an
another dam called Nangal in the downstream of Bhakra and both were called as Bhakra Nangal
Dam. The Bhakra dam is at 740 ft tall which is next to the Tehri Dam, so it is the 2nd highest dam in
India. The Bhakra dam is also the 2nd largest reservoir with capacity of 9.34 billion M 3 after the
Indira Sagar Dam in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

The Hirakud Dam was built in the year 1953 across the Mahanadi River in Hirakud district in
Odisha. The Hirakud Dam was build for multipurpose use as Irrigation, Hydro Electricity generation
etc. This dam has the installed hydro-power generation capacity of 307.5 MW. This dam is also
saves the entire Mahanadi delta from flood. Hirakud dams length is 25.8 KM with an artificial lake of
743 sq K.M. which is the Asias biggest artificial lake.

The Indirasagar Dam is built accross the Narmada river which is the Indias 5th largest river, at
Narmadanagar in the district of Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh, was commissioned in the year 2005.
This dam holds the 1st position as largest reservoir with installed capacity of 12.22 billion M 3 in India.
The Indirasagar dam has 1000 MW of hydro power installed capacity. This dam serves as a
multipurpose dam like Hirakud, Bhakra Nangal dam etc.

The Nagarjuna Sagar dam was one of the earliest large Infra-projects which is built across
Krishna River in Andhra Pradesh in India. The Nagarjuna Sagar dam is 150 meter tall and 1600

meter long which has the installed capacity of 816 MW of Hydro-electricity in 8 power generation
units. This dam has water reservoir capacity of 11472 million M3.

The Mettur dam which was one of the oldest and largest dams was built in the year 1934 in
India. This dam built across the Kaveri River in Tamilnadu state. Mettur dam is situated at Salem
district in Tamilnadu. The Mettur dam has the reservoir capacity of 94.3 billion cubic feet at height of
120 ft and length is at 1700 meters. The Mettur dam is utilised mainly in farm land irrigation works in
the parts of Namakkal, Salem, Tiruchirapalli and district of Thanjavur.