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The Tungabhadra Dam, also known as Pampa Sagar, is a water reservoir constructed across the Tungabhadra River in the city of Hosapete in Vijayanagara district, Karnataka, India. It is a multipurpose dam serving irrigation, electricity generation, flood control, etc. for the state. It is one of the only two non-cement dams in India, the other being the Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala. The dam is built of surki mortar, a combination of mud and limestone, commonly used at the time of its construction.
The dam was a joint project undertaken in 1949 by the erstwhile Kingdom of Hyderabad and Madras Presidency when the construction began;later, after India's constitution into a republic in 1950, it became a joint project between the governments of Mysore State (now Karnataka) and Hyderabad State (now Telangana). The construction was completed in 1953. The Tungabhadra Dam has withstood the test of time for over 70 years and is expected to well cross many more decades.
The chief architect of the dam was Vepa Krishnamurthy, an engineer from Madras Public Works Department (PWD). He envisioned it as being built with a large contingent of material and manual labour, as best suited to Indian labour availability and employment at that time. The chief contractor for the dam was Venkat Reddy Mulamalla from Konour, a village in Mahabubnagar, Telangana.
Tungabhadra dam with all of its gates open.
The famine-ridden region of Rayalseema, then comprising the districts of Bellary, Anantapur, Kurnool and Cuddapah, attracted the attention of British engineers as early as 1860. To relieve the intensity of famines in these districts, proposals were made in 1860 to utilise the waters of the Tungabhadra through a storage reservoir and a system of canals to provide irrigation for the lands. Several agreements were reached for harvesting and imposing restrictions on utilising the Tungabhadra waters. Protracted negotiations and investigations lasted for about eighty years.
Proposals and plan agreement
In 1860, Sir Arthur Cotton of Madras Presidency originally conceived the Tungabhadra project. His proposals were further modified and developed subsequently, evolving it into a joint scheme with the Kingdom of Hyderabad. N. Paramseswaran Pillai accordingly revised the scheme in 1933. In 1940, Madras ordered a detailed investigation of the scheme. Based on the agreements made, an examination of a number of alternatives was conducted by L. Venkata Krishna Iyer, the then Superintending Engineer, Bellary, and F. M. Dowley, Chief Engineer, both from the kingdom. In 1942, further detailed investigations of the project were done by M. S. Thirumale Iyengar from the presidency. The report he thus submitted was accepted by the Government of Madras with certain modifications fixing the sill level at RL 1550 ft. The June 1944 agreement between Madras and Hyderabad enabled the two governments to finally begin the construction of the Tungabhadra project.