Visit to Nagarjuna sagar Dam

Hi friends,

Today I am penning down this travelouge to talk about my latest trip – A trip to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam. I had been to this place due to some official work of mine. Hutch is going to cover this area and I was lucky enough to go on a pre survey there :-)

Well, let me first start with a fact file. Nagarjuna Sagar dam (NSD) is the tallest masonry dam in the word. It is located in Nalagonda district of Andhra Pradesh. I don’t have the exact mathematical details about it (like its xyz meters tall, ABC meters wide....blah, blah, blah). But from what I can see I can say - "its Huge". It also made me feel proud for being an Engineer, because it’s nothing less then an Engineering marvel.

We started a few days back to this place in a “cheverolet Tavera” by road. The place is well connected to Hyderabad thru roadways. A national highway runs right thru it. We (Myself, a collogue of mine - Manju, a civil engineer and a land acquisition person) started off at around 7 in the morning and were in NSD after a 4 hours drive.

You are greeted into the confines of NSD by the sweet flowing sound of Krishna River. A roadside bill board screams at you - "swimming here is dangerous. Crocodiles inside". We made a brief stop at this spot to have a good look at the river. A few meters away from us, an old man had just killed a King cobra with his walking stick and was showing it off proudly in our direction. I smiled back at him.

I am attaching a picture taken from this place with my mobile camera for you to see(First picture above).

Then you come across a brief "Ghats section" that leads you inside the main dam area. At the highest point of this hill, I have now planned a Microwave repeater for Hutch. It’s going to be a very important Back bone site in near future. I love this site - It’s my brain child. And no worries if you read the last few sentences as Chinese ching pang po :-). The picture above (picture 2) is taken from the point where my repeater will be coming up in near future

APTDC (Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation) has maintained the main dam area very well. They have given it a cool and neat look. 10 on 10 to them. We can stay back in a Lodging maintained by APTDC called as "project Green land". The cost comes to anywhere between 150 to 750 rupees. It is said that when the dam was being built, the engineers who were involved in the dam construction work used to stay back in this quarters. It has an Old, classy look attached to it. With a big lawn in front, cool breeze, silence, soft music of running water and no mobile coverage - it was a pleasure living in this hotel.

About 10 minutes drive from this hotel is the Right earth dam portion of NSD. Just by standing there and looking towards the construction, gives you a feel of the massiveness of the structure. Appreciation, awe and respect for the people involved in its construction come naturally to you. Behind this Right earth dam is a small town that has been created by the people working in NSD. It’s called as Pylon colony. You can visit there to do some shopping and refilling of your stomach.

Going down from the Pylon colony first brings you to the chief engineer’s house of the NSD project. It’s now in ruins. Not that it is a tourist location or it’s beautiful - It’s just that this is the place where all the chief engineers of the project resided and overlooked the proceedings of the dam work. It’s in a high elevated place and standing on this point, you can view the entire right earth dam in its full glory, along with the power generation station. And guess what we will be putting up a small cell site here, which will help us to cover the full of Power station. :-). The photo above (picture 3) is of the picture taken from the place where once upon a time the chef engineer’s house existed. To the right hand corner of the photo you can see the high tension wires of the Power Generation station.

Right below the Chief engineer’s house is the power generation station. It’s generally locked for the general public. This is locked due to ISI threat (yes, of the Pakistan fame). We tried to get into this station by giving all sort of rubbish reason - we are from hutch, we will give you coverage in this area etc etc etc...But we were not let in. Nonetheless, the view of the dam from outside the power station is breathtaking. From here you can see water flowing in small rivulets after being let away from the turbines. You can hear the constant humming of the power turbines. Inside the power station, power requirements of the state is continuously monitored. If there is any increase in the power requirements - a loud siren is sounded to alert anyone who might be near to the river banks. The water is then let out in higher speed, increasing the turbine speed and the generated power. Engineering Rocks :-). See the view I saw from this spot and judge by yourself. The small tunnel like things you can see in the photo is the outlet from the turbines inside the power generation station. Its even more beautiful see the sudden increase in water flow after the seiren is sounded. Unluckily, the photo is covered by tree branches that hide the view of the actual power generation station. But still it’s good enough to see and have a feel of how it looks(Pleasse look at Picture 4 above).

In case you are thinking "what the hell is this Masonry dam?” Let me give you some Civil Gyan. A masonry dam is a man made obstruction between two hills with water flowing in between. It’s the same in case of NSD as well. The value added service you have here are two bridges between the hills along with a dam. One bridge is an old weak one, which is now broken. And a newer, stronger, longer, taller bridge just a few meters away from the first bridge. Traveling thru this bridge to the other end of the hill takes you to the left earth portion of the dam. Equally majestic, huge, massive and beautiful as the right earth dam portion. You can stand here for some time and enjoy Nature. Luckily for me, I had taken a binocular for survey purpose and could see the picturesque location very well. picture 5 and 6 are two snaps in succession, one is the older bridge which is now broken, owing to the gush of water. The sixth photo you can see in quick succession is that of the newer bridge. The person who you can see in this photo going downwards is my collogue Manju who also accompoined me in this tour of mine.

In case you are thinking “why on earth this place is called Nagarjuna Sagar?” let me give you some historical Gyan. This place derives its name from Acharya Nagarjuna. He is said to be a very great Buddhist monk. He was also very scholarly and learned. He had created his own university on a small island on the river Krishna. People from all over the word thronged there for learning. This was something around 2000 years ago – WOW!!! . Since this place was made famous by Acharya Nagarjuna and his university is on Krishna Sagar, this place came to be known as Nagarjuna Sagar.

The university that Acharya Nagarjuna started is still accessible (though in ruins) from NSD. A few minutes drive from the south earth dam takes you to “launch point”. A boat steamer starts from this launch point every 15 minutes. The destination of this steamer is the University of Nagarjuna. The duration of the trip to the university is a solid 45 minutes. I was not lucky enough to go to that place, due to lack of time. But, from the people whom I met on my way back said that it's a very beautiful place and the boat ride make it still more enticing. The seat of the university itself now contains some splendid sculptures, Buddhist tablets and a serene and calm environment.

My last stop on this tour was Ethipotla. Ethipotla is around half an hours drive from left earth dam of Nagarjuna Sagar dam. The place to watch out for is the Ethipotla water falls. It might not be as beautiful as Jog falls or even Gokak falls. But it provides a nice full stop to the visit of NSD. Start off by seeing the Dam where man stops water for his use and end it with a free flowing beautiful water falls - beauty in contradiction. Picture seventh above is the photo of the ethipotla water falls for you to see and admire. Also, just for the records – you are not advaised to go down there near the waterfalls. This is because this place still houses some mean crocodiles, and it is said that just a few days before our visit to this place a person was dragged into the water by a crocodile for a hearty luunch :-(

Thus came to an end my small yet enjoyable trip to NSD. The things that I narrated were the main part of the travel. There were also smaller not soo important things that happened like our vehicle meeting with an accident, breaking its wheel axle and spinning out of control (we managed to drive the handicapped vehicle all the way to Hyderabad). Or us living a entire day on just a few buns cause the place where we ended up while doing survey did not have anything to eat. Or the “king lizard” that royally fell from the heavens on our feet when we first time opened the doors of our lodging (the thing was so big that I was confused if it was a lizard or baby crocodile!!!!). But then all this things are quite common during travels and surveys. What really matters is as far as Nagarjuna Sagar dam is concerned I can say – “Been there, seen that”…….