The Gujarat government on August 9 opened 26 of the 30 gates at the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam for the first time after they were installed in 2017 to maintain the water level of 131.18 m allowed by the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) in the reservoir.
The total height of the dam is 139 m but the NCA has allowed Gujarat to fill the dam at 131.18 m.
The gates were opened after a huge inflow of water from Madhya Pradesh owing to extremely heavy rainfall in the Narmada catchment areas in the State.
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Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, his deputy Nitin Patel and top officials, including Chief Secretary J.N. Singh, K. Kailashbathan and Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam MD Rajiv Kumar Gupta, visited the dam site after the gates were opened by the authorities.
“With heavy inflows in #SardarSarovarDam, we started River Bed Power House (1200 MW) after a gap of two years!” Dr. Gupta tweeted on Thursday.
Meanwhile, with the release of water from the dam, the administration has alerted three districts downstream — Narmada, Bharuch and Vadodara — about potential flooding in low-lying villages there.
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The government has also closed several bridges for traffic movement as the Narmada is flowing at danger level.
Gujarat continues to receive medium to heavy rainfall as part of south western monsoon in the country. On Thursday, parts of Central Gujarat received extremely heavy downpour, leading to floods in Chhota Udepur district, as all major rivers are overflowing in the region.
According to a State government release, 168 talukas received rain in the last 24 hours and as a result, 14 dams and reservoirs had overflowed, while the total monsoon rainfall in the State stood at 66.41% in the current season.
To deal with floods, the State has deployed 18 teams of NDRF and 11 teams of SDRF at different locations.