Tehri Dam
The Tehri Dam is the largest dam in the " Tehri Hydro Project ," a large hydroelectric power plant project at Tehri in the state of Uttarakhand in India. The rockfill dam is 261 m high, depending on which method of counting the fifth- to tenth- highest dam of the earth. Dammed the rivers Bhagirathi and Bhilangana.
The hydroelectric power plants, which were supplied by Voith Siemens, as a whole have a capacity of 2400 megawatts. This is made up of the Tehri hydroelectric power plant (1,000 MW) and Tehri pumped storage power plant (1,000 MW) at the main dam and the Koteshwar Hydro Power Plant 14 (or 22) km downstream at Koteshwar, where another power plant with a capacity of 400 MW to be built. In the first phase, however, only 1,000 MW will be available. This will be the most powerful power plant complex in India.
In addition, the dam stabilizes the irrigation of 6,000 km ² and extends the irrigation area by a further 2700 km ². Furthermore, it supplies industrialized cities in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand with 1 million cubic meters of drinking water per day. Originally, it was expected construction cost of four million dollars. Meanwhile, the equivalent of $ 1 billion has already been spent and partly the overall cost values are already 2 billion dollars.
Planning began in 1972 and construction in 1978., The " Tehri Hydro Development Corporation " ( THDC ) was founded on 12 July 1988 as a joint project of the Government of India and the Government of Uttar Pradesh ( before Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh split off ) to the construction the dam to monitor. The dam as the main part of the project will be built near the old Tehri town, which lies at the confluence of the rivers Bhagirathi, the largest tributary of the Ganges, and the Bhilangana. The water surface of the reservoir will cover 52 km ². The old town of Tehri and 112 villages will sink into the water and 1 lakh people to be relocated (that is 100,000 people ).
Against this dam there was intense protests from environmental groups and by the population in the region. The opposition to the resettlement of more than 100,000 people has led to verschleppenden litigation and delays the project long. In addition to environmental concerns regarding the location of large dams in the fragile ecosystem at the foot of the Himalayas, there are also concerns relating to the safety of the dam. The Tehri dam is located at the Central Himalayan fold greater geological fault zone. In this region there were in October 1991, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale, the epicenter was 50 km from the dam site. When the earthquake several hundred people died. Scientists fear that an earthquake of magnitude 8 also could cause damage to the dam. - In a tunnel, there has been a serious accident in August 2004, as a part of the tunnel collapsed in heavy rains.
Following a court ruling, the tunnel was T2 of the dam on October 29, 2005 closed, thereby starting the filling of the reservoir. Actually, that was provided in December 2002. Two other deeper tunnels, T3 and T4, had been closed in December 2001. But the closing of the tunnel T2 has led to further controversy, because the water has the leadership of the Bhagirathi to 2 m³ / s instead of the normal 1000 m³ / s reduced. According to Hindu mythology the river Bhagirathi is the actual path ( which has the same name as the goddess Ganga ), although the river carries the name Ganga or " Ganaga " only from the confluence of the Bhagirathi Alaknanda at Devprayag with. If the amount of water of Bhagirathi is reduced, hardly any water of Bhagirathi river will reach the 80 km distant Ganges. The sanctity of the Ganga is thus reduced and this has created resentment.
But the filling of the dam continued. At 720 m the test run of the generators could begin. The first generator is since June 2006 on the network and provides electricity.