Tehri Dam of Uttarakhand achieves full capacity of 830 metres

 The Tehri reservoir located in Uttarakhand’s Tehri Dam Project on Friday reached full reservoir capacity of 830m for the first time, THDC India limited said in a statement.

“This day shall be remembered as the beginning of a new era in the history of the Tehri dam project from where it started delivering the maximum intended benefits to the society fully,” the company said. The company also thanked Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and state irrigation minister Satpal Maharaj. It said that Maharaj acknowledged the situation of wastage of national resources in view of restricted impoundment of the reservoir and granted the permission to fill the reservoir to its full capacity.

The dam’s power plant provides 1000MW of peaking power and more than 3000 million units of energy annually to the northern grid, of which 12% goes to Uttarakhand, free of cost.

The permission to fill the reservoir to 830 metre was given last month by the state government. “The reservoir touched elevation level (EL) 828m on September 11 and thereafter filling was done at 0.30m in 48 hrs to reach EL(+) 830m on September 24,” the company said.

The Tehri reservoir is the first earth and rockfill dam of such height in India. “THDCIL took every precaution, reviewed available literature about the initial filling of high dams worldwide and consulted eminent hydro project experts to frame the dam filling program along with the program of regular monitoring of the structures through instruments installed and geodetic observations,” the company said.

The Tehri Dam project was conceived in 1949. The THDC India Ltd was brought in to finish the project. The company said that it took cognisance of the issues and impact on quality of water and environment due to the dam and set up panels to examine it. “Several government departments and panels of eminent scientists and experts were constituted to deliberate these issues and after their recommendations, construction of the main dam started in 1990 with raising of the upstream cofferdam. Seismic safety of the dam was again reviewed by the Indian and Russian experts,” the company further added.

                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                          -Hindustan Times