Polavaram - Mega Irrigation Project

Polavaram Dam

The Polavaram Irrigation  Project is currently under construction in West Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh. The project has been accorded as a National Project by the Union Government. The project has a cost of 55,000 crores which makes it come to National Project status.

The purpose of the project was to overcome the drought condition pre-monsoon. The condition before monsoon and after are totally different, as the river is completely drained into the Bay of Bengal before monsoon which in 2017 was calculated to be 3000 tmcft to a long and wide 6.5 km width river in monsoon.

Check: Dams

Project Details:

The project consists of a dam in Polavaram which is 39 meters high and will have the World's Largest Discharge Capacity of 50 lakh cusecs. The project will surpass the current highest capacity of 3 Gorge's Dam of China which has 47 lakh cusecs capacity. 

Check: Three Gorges Dam

The dam will have a concrete diaphragms wall of 1.5 meters thick and 40 to 120 meters deep below the river bed which is first of its kind in India. The diaphragm will stabilize the river bed and withstand water pressure on the dam. The dam is a mixture of Earth Dam cum Rock Fill Dam which will be built between to cofferdams. The dam will be 2.31 km long and the spillway will be of around 1 km with 48 vents will be fabricated on-site and hydraulic cylinders will be manufactured in Germany.

1055 lakh cubic meter rock excavated, 36.7 lakh cubic meter of concrete, 50000 tonnes of steel

The project at its construction stag itself created a Guinness World Record by pouring 32315.5 cubic meter concrete into the spillway channel within 24 hours.

The dam will also have a hydroelectric power plant with a capacity of 960 MW which will be beneficial for the new state. The project is set to be completed in 2021 and will also lower the drought problem.