Technical Visit to Polavaram

REPORT SUBMITTED BY

K. Durga Bhavani (18021D1803)

M. Vemani (18021D1805)
S. Navya (18021D1807)
K. Uma Naga Veera Satyadevi(18021D1809)
N. Satya Sai Suneeta (18021D1810)
K. Naga Mounika (18021D1822)

HYDRAULICS AND WATER RESOURCE ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

JNTU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
KAKINADA
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Contents

1 The History Of Polavaram

2 The Hydrology Of Polavaram
3 Interaction With Engineers
4 The Knowledge We Gained
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

The History of Polavaram Project

In July 1941, the first conceptual proposal for the project was mooted by the erstwhile
Madras Presidency. Diwan Bahadur L. Venkatakrishna Iyer, then Chief Engineer in the
Presidency's irrigation department, made the first survey of the project site and made a
definitive proposal for a reservoir at Polavaram. Sri Iyer not only envisaged cultivation of
350,000acres (140,000 ha) over two crop seasons through this project, but also planned for
a 40 MW hydroelectric plant within the project.

The old final designs of Polavaram dam was planned at full reservoir level (FRL) 208 ft MSL
(Mean Sea Level) with 836 TMC gross storage capacity and 150 MW hydroelectric plant. It
was named as the "Ramapada Sagar Project" since the backwaters of the reservoir would
touch the Lord Rama temple at Bhadrachalam. Subsequently, FRL has been reduced to
+150ft (46 m) with gross capacity of 194.6 TMC and total water utilization of 322 TMC

Works on the project commenced in 2005. Site clearance was obtained from the Centre on
19th September 2005, environmental clearance on 25th October 2005, R & R clearance on
17th April 2007, wildlife sanctuary clearance on 19th Sept 2008, forest clearance on 26th Dec
2008 and technical advisory committee clearance on 20th January 2009.
The Project has been accorded national project status by the union government in 2014
(under Section-90 of A.P. Reorganization Act, 2014). Polavaram Project Authority was
formed in Jan 2015 under Ministry of Water Resources to expedite the project execution.
Since 2015, the project has gathered pace of construction and is planned to be completed in
2019.

Indirasagar Polavaram an interstate project on river Godavari has been conceived as a part
of recommendations of Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal (GWDT). GWDT finalized its
award in 1980 .The award identifies individual projects that can be taken up by the co-basin
states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh), Orissa, Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh (AP) on the main Godavari river as well as its tributaries. As a part of the
award, the states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa executed an agreement
dated 02-04-1980 to enable clearance of Polavaram Project to be undertaken by AP. The
agreement provides for construction of the project with a Full Reservoir Level of 150 Feet
and with a spillway discharging capacity of 36 Lakh Cusecs at pond level of 140 feet and not
less than 20 Lakh Cusecs at a pond level of 130 feet. In order to protect the lands and
properties above level of 150 feet, in Orissa and Chhattisgarh, protective embankments with
adequate drainage sluices have been provided at the cost of the project. Relevant provisions
of the agreement are reproduced below.

“Polavaram project spillway shall be designed for a flood discharge capacity of 36 Lakh
cusecs at the pond level of 140 feet and not less than 20 lakh cusecs at pond level of 130
feet.”
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

In order to protect the lands and properties above 150 feet in the territory of Orissa likely to
be affected due to construction of Polavaram project, protective embankments with
adequate drainage sluices shall be constructed and maintained at the cost of Polavaram
project. However, the state of Orissa may exercise an option at the time of construction of
Polavaram project for compensation to land and property likely to be affected above 150 feet
as agreed in case of state of Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh).

For damages or injury to lands beyond 150 feet in the territory of Madhya Pradesh (now
Chhattisgarh), in any event, the state of Andhra Pradesh shall pay full compensation for
such damage or injury as may be assessed by the District Collector of the said district of the
state of Madhya Pradesh (now Chattisgarh).

The matter of design of the dam and its operation schedule shall be left to Central Water
Commission, which they shall decide keeping in view all the agreements between the parties
including the agreement of 2nd April 1980 filed today, as far as practicable.”
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Hydrology Of Polavaram Project

Water balance studies for the twelve sub-basins of the Godavari basin have already been
done and brought out by NWDA as separate reports. These studies include assessment of
total surface water availability, existing use, reasonable requirements of the sub-basin in the
foreseeable future (2025 AD) and determination of the order of surplus or deficit. The
methodology adopted by NWDA for computing the water balance (surplus or deficit) sub-
basin wise is discussed below.

Surface Water Availability

For realistic estimation of the water availability in a sub-basin, a long-term yield series for
that sub-basin is required. Generally observed flow data for a sub-basin is not available for
longer duration. As such long-term yield series for a sub-basin is developed from the
available concurrent rainfall-runoff data using regression analysis. Usually terminal G & D
site is considered for this purpose. However, reliability and period of availability of data are
the other considerations for selecting the G & D site. To the observed flows of the selected
G & D site upstream utilizations in respect of irrigation, hydel, domestic and industrial
requirements are added to get the virgin yields. Weighted rainfall values for the catchment
up to G & D site and also for the whole sub-basin are worked out. Using these virgin flows
and weighted rainfall up to the G & D site, the regression analyses are carried out. Using
the best fit equation thus obtained and the weighted rainfall for the entire sub-basin, long
term yield series are generated. From the long-term yield series, the 75% and 50%
dependable yields of the sub-basin are computed.

Water Requirement

The requirement of water at the ultimate stage for various uses viz., irrigation, drinking,
industry and hydropower are worked out as under:

Irrigation Needs: The requirements for irrigation are worked out for all the existing, ongoing
and proposed major, medium and minor projects in a sub-basin. For this purpose, all the
projects planned by the states, as per their master plans were considered. While the
designed annual utilization is considered for the existing and ongoing projects, the
requirements for future projects are determined by adopting intensities of irrigation as
150%, 125% and 100% for major, medium and minor projects respectively. The deltas are
worked out by climatological approach taking the irrigation efficiency as 55% for
major/medium projects and 70% for minor projects. For assessing the crop water
requirements by climatological approach, the potential Evapotranspiration values for
various stations as given in the IMD, Scientific Report No.136 (1971) are adopted. In case of
deficit sub-basin, where the ultimate annual irrigation, considering all the existing, ongoing
and proposed major, medium and minor projects works out to less than 30% of the
maximum culturable area of the sub-basin, the requirements have been calculated by
increasing the annual irrigation to 30% of the maximum culturable area of the sub-basin.
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

And 50% of such increased annual irrigation has been considered to be under future
medium projects and the remaining 50% under future minor schemes. Similarly, in case of
surplus sub-basins, the annual irrigation is increased to 60% of the maximum culturable
area or to such maximum percentage between 30 and 60 as may be possible from the entire
surface water available in that particular sub-basin.

Domestic Needs: The total domestic use from both surface and groundwater is estimated
based on 1991 census after projecting human population as well as livestock population to
2025 AD using suitable annual compound growth rates. The requirements are worked out
separately for the rural, urban and livestock population. In case of rural and urban
population, per capita daily needs of 70 liters and 200 liters respectively have been adopted
as per the recommendations of the Ministry of Works and Housing in their manual “Water
Supply and Treatment”. In case of livestock population per capita daily need of 50 liters,
has been considered. The requirement of 50% of the rural population and the entire
livestock population is considered to be met from groundwater, and the requirement for
the remaining 50% of the rural population and the entire urban population is considered to
be met from surface water.

Industrial Needs: Due to lack of data to estimate precisely the industrial water needs, the
industrial requirement is taken to be equivalent to the total domestic requirement for
human population and livestock. The entire industrial requirement is considered to be met
from surface water.

Hydropower Needs: Requirement for the hydropower is taken to be the evaporation losses
at the reservoirs with hydropower production. Wherever the evaporation data of the
projects is available, the same has been made use of and wherever the data is not available
the same is worked out from the surface area of the reservoir assuming suitable evaporation
values.

Regeneration: Regeneration is considered as 10% of the net utilization for irrigation under
major and medium projects and as 80% of the domestic and industrial use to be met from
the surface water.

Water Balance

The total water requirement of a sub-basin worked out on the methodology outlined above
is deducted from the overall surface water availability at 75% and 50% depend abilities to
determine the surplus/deficit of water at 75% and 50% depend abilities respectively.
Evaporation losses, based on the available data for existing major and medium reservoirs in
the basin, imports to and exports from the basin are also taken into account while arriving
at water balance.
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Water Balance at Polavaram

Water Transfer from Polavaram Project to Krishna Basin is 6500 Mm3 of water is proposed
to be delivered at Dowlaiswaram barrage on Godavari river by the Mahanadi - Godavari link
canal. Due to this the water saved at Polavaram project can be transferred through the
Polavaram - Vijayawada link canal to the Krishna river.
The quantity of water available at Polavaram for transfer to Krishna through the link canal
has been assessed by NWDA by adopting two approaches. In the first approach, the yield
of the Godavari river at Polavaram available at 75% dependability has been considered and
the overall surplus at 75% dependability has been worked out. For this purpose, the
catchment area of the basin below the proposed Inchampalli project up to Polavaram only
has been taken into consideration, since all the surplus water available at Inchampalli is
proposed to be diverted to Krishna through Inchampalli - Nagarjunasagar and Inchampalli
- Pulichintala link canals. As such the water that could be intercepted at Polavaram consists
of only the flows from the Sabari sub-basin and the part catchment of Lower Godavari sub-
basin between Inchampalli and Polavaram. In the second approach, detailed reservoir
simulation studies were carried out for Bhopalpatnam Hydroelectric Project on Indravati
river, Inchampalli and Polavaram projects on main Godavari. In this approach, the spills at
Inchampalli project are assumed to be available at Polavaram project for use.
Simulation results

From the yearly working tables for both the initial conditions i.e., reservoir storage at
MDDL and the reservoir storage at half full, it is seen that the success rate of meeting
the domestic & industrial as well as irrigation requirements works out to be more than
75%. For computing the success rate, the year in which deficit is less than 10% of the
demand is considered as year of success. Various demands that are successfully met
are given in Table 2(a)

Table 2(a): Various demands met from the Polavaram project

S.N0. Purpose Quantity (Mm3 )

1. Water supply to Visakhapatnam 664
2. Polavaram Left Main Canal 1881
3. Godavari delta 623
4. Polavaram Right Main Canal 1402
5. Krishna delta 2265
6. Additional diversion through P-V link 1236
7. Domestic and industrial requirement 162

Total 8233
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Interaction with engineers

The Assistant Executive Engineers of Polavaram Mr.Prasad and Mr. Prasanth received us.
They have taken us to model of polavaram and explain in brief about topographical,
geological, hydrological and design parameters of project planned by showing the model
and further gave a clear outlook about all features present in site.

Engineer Mr. Prasad explaining the students

The engineers explained about the spillway upstream and downstream features such as
divide wall, C.C bed of approach channel, Sluice, pires, aggregate cooling plant, upstream
and downstream cofferdams and also place where diaphragm wall is to be constructed.
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Places /Works Inspected

The following are different places visited at Polavaram during the trip.

1. Model of polavaram

2. Spillway construction

Spillway construction from View Point

 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Spillway construction from Upstream

Under sluice from Upstream

 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

3. Earth and Rock fill dam

Site for construction of Earth cum rockfill dam where diaphragm wall is constructed
already

4. Radial gate Proto type adyady

Model for demonstrating working mechanism of radial type gate

 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

5. Saddle dam

Construction of saddle dam

6. Log gates

Log gate Erection unit and working

 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

The Kn0wledge we gained

I would be the largest reservoir if it is constructed. Main dam is completely made of earth.
The model of polavaram gave us a clear idea about the components of the project.

The Polavaram Project consist of the following major components: -

I. Spillway

For every dam spillway is a inbuilt section. Spillway is completely constructed away from
the main dam as the soil is weak in the direction of main river and also the rock strata is
available at higher depth so that they just divert the main stream flow of the river. Here
main dam acts as a obstruction only to create reservoir and spillway is constructed away
from the main dam, which is constructed across the diverted stream of main rivers which is
connected by approach channel and surplus water sent to main river by spill channel.

Spillway is constructed between two mountains. The foundation level of spillway is not
uniform. It has three different levels +10M, -9.5M, -18M.The length of spillway is 1.1Km.The
length of spillway channel is 3Km. The Spill Way has a over flow section and non over flow
of 37 m on either side with total length of 1128.40 m. It is having a 48 Nos. radial gates to
pass a maximum flood discharge of 1.41 lakh cumecs (50 lakhs cusecs PMF).

The Spill Channel for a Length of 2920 m and bed width of 1000 m is at downstream of
spillway. Pilot Channel of Length 650 m with a bed width of 660 m is proposed at the end
of Spill Channel to River confluence. An approach channel is proposed on the upstream side
of spillway to divert water from river for a length of 2310 m and bed width 660 m.

From the view point we could clearly see the downstream of spillway inculets, divide walls,
silting basin, spill channel c.c bed.

II. Earth-Cum-Rock Fill Dam

Earth-Cum-Rock Fill dams across the main river with spillway on the right flank, and power
house on left flank on downstream slopes. The Earth -Cum- Rock Fill dam (Gap-II ) in the
main river course is 1750 m. long with a maximum height of +53.320 m. (175 ft.), top width
15 m and with single plastic concrete Diaphragm wall of thickness 1.5 m.In addition, there
are two Earth Dams (Gap-I and Gap-III) with a length of 564 M with top width 12.5M and a
Length of 140 M and top width 12.5 m respectively proposed on either side of earth cum rock
fill dam.

Upstream and Downstream Coffer Dams are also to be constructed during the construction
of Earth -Cum- Rock Fill dam (ECRF) Dam for diverting the River. The upstream coffer dam
is under construction.

Diaphragm wall has been constructed previously with a length of 1485M and a varying depth
of 40M to 100M.
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

III. Saddle Dam

Saddle is the lowest point. To avoid the flow of water from Right canal to river. There are
two saddle dams.

Along with the saddle dam a series of structures/components are proposed such as
regulators, tunnels with suitable entry and exit channels, saddle dams etc for connecting
the main reservoir to the Right Main Canal and Left Main Canal of the Polavaram Project.

IV. Right and Left Main canals

Right Main Canal: The Right Main Canal takes-off from the Head Regulator and runs to a
length of 174 Km crossing major streams like Kovvadakalava, Yerrakalava, Gunderu,
Tammileru and Ramileru etc., before emptying into Budameru above the existing diversion
Regulator at Velagaleru near Vijayawada. The waters meant for diversion to Krishna river
will then pass through the existing Budameru diversion channel and join Krishna River
about 8 Km upstream of Prakasam Barrage.

The Right Main Canal is proposed as a lined canal and designed to provide irrigation
facilities to an extent of 1.29 lakhs Ha. (3.194 lakhs Acres) of ayacut in upland areas
of West Godavari and Krishna Districts besides diversion of 2.266 TMC (80 TMC) of
Godavari waters into Krishna river near Vijayawada.

Left Main Canal: The Left Main canal takes off from the Nelakota subsidiary
reservoir and runs for a length of 181.50 KM crossing major streams like Sarada,
Mamidivaka gedda, varaha, Thandava, yerra,buradakalva etc. The Left Main canal is
proposed as a lined canal and designed to provide irrigation facilities to an extent of
1.619 lakhs Ha (4.00 Lakhs acres) of ayacut in East Godavari and Visakhapatnam
Districts besides industrial and water supply of 23.44 TMC. of Godavari Waters in
and around Visakhapatnam city.

V. Power house

The power house is located at the down stream with necessary tunnels for penstocks
and tail race channel with installed capacity of 12 units of 80 MW. i.e., 960 MW

VI. Gates

The gates used are of two types log gates and radial gates.

Log gates: They are used only when radial gates are undergoing some maintenance
works. There are 5 log gates in the dam as per design.
 Technical visit to Polavaram Report

Radial gates: They are easy to lift .and radial gate consists of hydraulic jacks,
trunnion to support radial gate to lift easily with less effort. There are 48 radial gates
in the dam as per design. The radial gates designed to pass a maximum flood discharge
of 1.41 lakh cumecs (50 lakhs cusecs PMF).

Aggregate cooling Plant

Aggregated is cooled to reduce the heat. Previously ice is used as coolant for cooling. But
now it is not used because of high time requirement. Now Liquid nitrogen is used as coolant.
The cooled aggregate is conveyed through conveyor belts to batching plant. The reason for
cooling is to reduce the heat of hydration and there by avoid cracking in concrete.