Water level in Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam touches 133 meters mark for the first time

Vadodara: The water level of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Dam reservoir, known as the life-line of water supply in Gujarat, is almost continuously rising with slight fluctuations and occasional lowering due to opening of gates and today touched record 133 meter mark for the first time.

According to the official information received from the Narmada flood control office here the water level was 133.00 meters at 3 pm today. It was an all time high so far.

Later it came down by one cm and at 5 pm it was almost stable at 132.99 m. The inflow was 272980 cusec and outflow slightly less at 272760 cusec.

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 filing 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 3987.90 Million Cubic Meter (MCM) which was 69.23% of total live storage capacity. The Gross storage at 7687.9 MCM was 81.26% of total gross storage capacity.

Due to heavy inflow at 5 pm 15 of of the 30 gates of the dam were opened up to 2.4 m to discharge water.

Notably, the gates iwere 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. Three 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