Mettur Dam

Mettur Dam Latest News

The probability of the Mettur dam getting opened on the scheduled date appears to be remote, in view of the poor storage and the forecast of a poor southwest monsoon (June-September) this year.

About Mettur Dam

• It is located at Mettur, Salem District, in Tamil Nadu.
• At 65 meters high and 1,700 meters long, it is one of the largest dams in India and the largest in Tamilnadu. 
• It is constructed in a gorge, where the Kaveri River enters the plains.
• Built in 1934, it took 9 years to complete. The entire work was supervised by the then Governor of Madras, Sir George Stanley.   
• It was constructed for the main purpose of capturing Kaveri waters for irrigation, drinking water supply, and power generation.  
• Features:
  • It is a masonry gravity dam.
  • The reservoir formed by the dam is known as the Stanley Reservoir.  It has the contribution to produce 240 MW of hydroelectricity. 
  • There is a park adjoining the dam on the opposite side with lawns and fountains and also has the Muniappan/Aiyanar statue in the vicinity.
• The dam receives inflows from its own catchment area, Kabini Dam, and Krishna Raja Sagara Dams located in Karnataka. 
• It provides irrigation facilities to parts of Salem, the length of Erode, Namakkal, Karur, Tiruchirappali, and Thanjavur districts for 271,000 acres of farmland.

Source: TH

‹ ›