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Water level in Chhattisgarh’s longest dam Gangrel ,had been constantly increasing, alerting the authorities to keep a close watch on the flow coming from the catchment area of the reservoir.
The oldest and the longest dam in Chhattisgarh is located in Dhamtari district—about 80 km from the state capital. The dam supplies year round irrigation, allowing farmers to harvest two crops per year. In all, 264000 hectare of area is irrigated from the dam.
The water level in the dam built on Mahanadi that flows to Bay of Bengal intersecting Odisha state had been increasing following incessant rains that the region had been witnessing for the last couple of days. “The dam that had a capacity to hold 32 TMC of water had been filled 96 per cent to its capacity,” Executive Engineer Deepak Tiwari said. If the water arrival from the forest areas to the catchment region continued, they would be forced to open all the 14 gates of the dam, he added. The authorities are now releasing 11,000 cusec of water from the dam. It would increase once the water level in the dam increased further from the current level, Tiwari said, adding that they were keeping a close watch on the flow of water in the dam.
The reservoir that was built in 1979 had been generating 10 MW of hydro-electric power and emerged as an enchanting tourist destination. Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP)—the flagship entity of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)—gets water from the same reservoir.Though the almost capacity of the dam had been good news for the farmers and the industries, people living in the downstream areas were spending sleepless nights. For, a flood-like situation cannot be ruled out if water flow to the dam increased and all the gates were opened for discharge of water.The surplus water release in Mahanadi would also affect parts of Odisha and Hirakund Dam—the longest man-made dam in the world built on the same river.
