Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD)

About Sardar Sarovar Dam:

• It is a concrete gravity dam built on the Narmada River at Kevadia in Gujarat’s Narmada district.
• The dam was named after Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
• It is the third highest concrete dam (163 meters) in India, the first two being Bhakra (226 metres) in Himachal Pradesh and Lakhwar (192 meters) in Uttar Pradesh.
• In terms of the volume of concrete involved in gravity dams, this dam will be ranked as the second largest in the world after the Grand Coule Dam in the USA.
• It is a part of the Narmada Valley Project, a large hydraulic engineering project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation and hydroelectric multi-purpose dams on the Narmada River. 
• The river catchment area above the dam site is 88,000 sq. km. and has a spillway discharging capacity of 87,000 cubic meters a second. 
• It has the longest canal network in the world and includes the Narmada Main Canal, around 2,500 km of branch canals, 5,500 km of distributaries, and other associated channels.
  • The 458.3km long, 1,133 cumecs capacity Narmada Main Canal in Gujarat is the largest irrigation-lined canal in the world.
• Power benefits are shared among Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat in the ratio of 57:27:16, respectively.

Q1: Which are the main tributaries of the Narmada River?

Its principal tributaries are the Burhner, the Halon, the Heran, the Banjar, the Dudhi, the Shakkar, the Tawa, the Barna ,the Kolar, the Ganjal, the Beda, the Goi, and the Orsang.

Source: Sardar Sarovar Dam just 2 metres away from full reservoir level; villages in Bharuch alerted