Srisailam Dam: Krishna Gorge, Two Power Houses and the Plunge Pool Risk
Srisailam Dam explained: where it stands on the Krishna, who runs its two power houses, why AP and Telangana clash over it and what the NDSA found below it.
The Srisailam dam is a 145 m gravity dam across the Krishna, built in a deep gorge of the Nallamala hills where the river marks the border between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Finished in the early 1980s, it feeds two power houses with 1,670 MW between them, one on each bank and each owned by a different state, and its reservoir now supplies canals and lift schemes on both sides.
Most readers carry a half-picture of Srisailam: a big dam beside a jyotirlinga temple, or a Telangana project because the road from Hyderabad leads there. Neither survives a close look. The dam sits on the state border and each bank’s power house belongs to a different state. It was also built first for electricity, which is the real reason the two states now quarrel over how far its lake may be drawn down. This note settles those points and one most people never hear about: a scoured pit in the riverbed just below the spillway.
Srisailam Dam at a Glance
Srisailam is the Krishna’s power dam in the Nallamala gorge, shared by two states and, since 2021, listed for control by a central river board. That board, the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), files it under its formal name, the Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy Srisailam Project.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| River | Krishna, in a gorge of the Nallamala hills |
| Location | Border of Nandyal district (earlier Kurnool), Andhra Pradesh, and Nagarkurnool district (earlier Mahabubnagar), Telangana |
| Type and size | Gravity dam, 145 m high (143.26 m above the deepest foundation) and 512 m long, with 12 radial crest gates |
| Completed | 1982 in the CWC’s National Register of Large Dams; right bank station at full 770 MW in 1987 (JICA) |
| Reservoir | Full reservoir level 885 ft; gross storage 215.81 TMC at that level |
| Right bank power house | Andhra Pradesh (APGENCO): 7 x 110 MW = 770 MW, semi-underground |
| Left bank power house | Telangana (TGGENCO): 6 x 150 MW = 900 MW, reversible units, underground |
| Control | Listed in Schedule-2 of the KRMB’s jurisdiction notification of 15 July 2021, under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 |
| Neighbors | Nagarjuna Sagar downstream; the Srisailam temple about 3 km away; the Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve |
Where Is Srisailam Dam and Which River Is It On?
The Srisailam dam stands across the Krishna, in a deep gorge the river cuts through the Nallamala hills, about 3 km from the Srisailam temple according to the Nandyal district administration. The KRMB places the site about 300 m above sea level, on the border of what were then Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh and Mahabubnagar district in Telangana. Both have since been split, so the banks now fall in Nandyal and in Nagarkurnool, a district formed on 11 October 2016.
The setting explains the design. In a narrow gorge, a wall only 512 m long can hold back a lake of about 616 sq km, the reservoir area in the Central Water Commission’s register. It works like corking the neck of a bottle instead of walling off the bottle, except that a cork never has to let a flood through, and this wall does.
The Nallamala range is an offshoot of the Eastern Ghats, as the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) describes it, and the catchment draining into the dam covers 206,030 sq km, according to the KRMB. The note on the Krishna river follows the river’s full course and its other dams.
How Big Is Srisailam Dam, and How Does Its Reservoir Work?
Srisailam is 145 m high and 512 m long, and at full level its reservoir holds about 216 TMC. The more useful thing to learn is how that reservoir is divided, which explains the politics later.
Krishna reservoirs are measured in TMC, thousand million cubic feet; one TMC is about 28.3 million cubic meters, as the KRMB’s own conversions show. River flow is measured in cusecs, cubic feet per second.
The dam is a gravity dam, a wall that holds the water back by its own weight rather than by arching against the valley sides. Its 12 radial crest gates, curved steel gates that swing up to pass floods, each measure 18.3 m by 16.7 m.
The KRMB’s salient features give four levels that every Srisailam question quietly depends on:
- Full reservoir level (FRL), 885 ft: the normal top of the lake, with a gross storage of 215.81 TMC.
- Minimum draw-down level for irrigation, 854 ft: the lowest the lake is meant to fall when water is held for canals, with 89.29 TMC still in store.
- Minimum draw-down level for power, 834 ft: the lower floor allowed for running the turbines, with 53.85 TMC left.
- Dead storage, 705 ft: water below the lowest outlet, 3.42 TMC, which can’t be released at all.
Put the two middle numbers side by side. Between 854 ft and 834 ft lie 89.29 minus 53.85, or about 35.4 TMC. That slice can legally run turbines, yet once it is used the lake sits below the level set for irrigation. Whoever runs the turbines decides the fate of those 35 TMC. That’s the whole quarrel in one subtraction.
The KRMB gives the design flood as 19 lakh cusecs, moderated by the reservoir to about 13.56 lakh cusecs of outflow. In 2009 the dam had to pass about 25 lakh cusecs, later safety reports recount, far beyond that design. Keep that gap in mind for the plunge pool section.
Why Was Srisailam Built for Power First?
Srisailam was planned and built as a hydroelectric project, and the Central Water Commission’s National Register of Large Dams still lists its purpose as hydropower alone. Its irrigation and drinking-water roles came later, through canals and lifts that draw on the reservoir.
Completion dates differ by source. The CWC register records 1982, while a 2006 evaluation by JICA, the Japanese aid agency that later lent for the left bank station, dates the reservoir to 1984 and the 770 MW right bank plant to 1987. The safe answer: the dam was finished in the early 1980s and the right bank station reached full capacity in 1987.
The Right Bank Power House
The right bank station belongs to Andhra Pradesh and is run by APGENCO, which lists it at Sunnipenta with 7 units of 110 MW each, 770 MW in all. The KRMB describes it as semi-underground, with Francis turbines that only generate.
The Left Bank Pumped Storage Station
The left bank station belongs to Telangana and is run by TGGENCO, earlier TSGENCO. It is fully underground, with 6 reversible units of 150 MW each, according to the KRMB. Each machine works as a turbine when water falls through it and as a pump that pushes water back up into Srisailam when power is cheap.
That is pumped storage, a rechargeable battery made of water. Srisailam is the upper tank and Nagarjuna Sagar, the next big reservoir downstream, is the lower one, the pairing JICA’s evaluation describes. The battery picture breaks in one place: the plant needs water standing in the lower lake, which is why a weir was planned below Srisailam to hold enough for about eight hours of pumping a day.
JICA records the left bank’s construction from February 1988 to September 2003, 212 months against the 87 first planned. Its report describes 6 units of 165 MW, while the KRMB and later reports use 150 MW; the 900 MW figure is the one in Indian records today. With the right bank’s 770 MW that makes 1,670 MW, and the note on hydroelectric power places such stations in India’s power mix.
The irrigation roles came through works on the reservoir’s edges, which the KRMB’s 2021 jurisdiction notification lists:
| Work drawing on the Srisailam reservoir | State |
|---|---|
| Pothireddypadu head regulator and Srisailam Right Main Canal | Andhra Pradesh |
| Telugu Ganga head works, which carry water toward Chennai | Andhra Pradesh |
| Handri-Neeva lift irrigation scheme | Andhra Pradesh |
| Veligonda project tunnel | Andhra Pradesh |
| Srisailam Left Bank Canal tunnel | Telangana |
| Kalwakurthy lift irrigation scheme | Telangana |
| Palamuru-Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme | Telangana |
| Dindi lift irrigation scheme | Telangana |
Several are marked unapproved, and the notification says listing a project doesn’t approve it. By use, Srisailam is one of the peninsula’s multipurpose dams, whatever its register entry says.
Why Do Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Fight Over Srisailam?
They fight because the same water can either run Telangana’s left bank turbines and flow on to Nagarjuna Sagar, or stay in the lake for canals and lifts, and the largest diversions out of the basin are Andhra Pradesh’s. Telangana’s position, as reported in July 2021, is that Srisailam was built as a hydel project, so generation is a first use and not a misuse. The KRMB’s two draw-down levels, 854 ft for irrigation and 834 ft for power, are the two positions written as numbers.
What the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 Set Up
The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 built the machinery for sharing the river between the successor states. Four sections matter:
- Section 84: an Apex Council to supervise the two river boards; its 2nd meeting, in October 2020, was chaired by the Union Jal Shakti minister.
- Section 85: the KRMB, constituted on 28 May 2014 and effective from 2 June 2014, the day Telangana came into being.
- Section 87: the Centre’s power to notify which projects the board controls.
- Section 89: a longer term for the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II (KWDT-II), to make project-wise allocations and set an operational protocol for releases in years of deficit flows.
The board and the tribunal do different jobs, and this trips up almost everyone. The KRMB operates shared works; the tribunal, constituted on 2 April 2004 under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, decides who gets how much. On 4 October 2023 the Union Cabinet approved further terms of reference for KWDT-II to adjudicate between the two states. For Article 262 and the tribunal system, see the note on inter-state water disputes.
The 2021 Notification and the Handover That Stalled
The long-delayed jurisdiction came through a gazette notification of 15 July 2021, S.O. 2842(E), in force from 14 October 2021. It put the Srisailam spillway and both power houses in Schedule-2, the list of works the KRMB is to run itself rather than through the states. On paper both power houses passed to a central board; in practice the states kept running them. The record since then shows how slowly paper turns into control:
- 29-30 November 2023: Andhra Pradesh police moved onto the Nagarjuna Sagar dam downstream and released water; after a meeting called by the Union Home Secretary, both states agreed to return to the position of 28 November under CRPF oversight.
- 1 February 2024: at a KRMB meeting, both states agreed to hand over Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar and 15 outlets to the board for operation.
- 12 February 2024: the Telangana Assembly resolved against any unconditional handover and asked that diversions outside the basin from Srisailam be capped at 34 TMC, 15 TMC for Chennai’s water supply and 19 TMC for the Srisailam Right Branch Canal.
- 22 February 2025: at a KRMB meeting that Andhra Pradesh skipped, Telangana alleged unauthorized transfers from the Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar reservoirs.
Running Srisailam for power first, or holding every foot of water for canals, would each leave someone short in a dry year. The sensible middle is a neutral operator releasing water against an agreed rulebook, which is what the KRMB was created to be and what section 89 asks the tribunal to write for deficit years.
Is Srisailam Dam Safe? The Plunge Pool and the 2020 Fire
The worry at Srisailam isn’t a crack in the wall but a hole below it: the riverbed downstream of the spillway has been scoured into a deep pit, which India’s dam safety regulator has called a risk to the dam in peak floods. The left bank power station, separately, suffered a deadly fire in 2020.
A plunge pool is the stretch of riverbed where water falling off the spillway lands and spends its energy. Like sand under a running tap, it digs out first, and the fear is that the hollow eats back toward the foundation of the wall; only the scale differs, since the stream here in 2009 was about 25 lakh cusecs.
Reports trace the pit to those 2009 floods. Earlier protection, steel cylinders filled with concrete, was damaged or swept away, and in 2025 a deep hole in the pool was reported. The regulator is the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA), established on 17 February 2022 under the Dam Safety Act, 2021, which came into force on 30 December 2021. Its orders so far, as reported:
- Late April 2025: NDSA chairman Anil Jain inspected the dam, and Andhra Pradesh, which maintains it, was asked to fill the void with cement concrete tetrapods, four-legged blocks that interlock and blunt falling water, before 31 May 2025.
- Earlier NDSA recommendations, reported in January 2026: replace the damaged cylinders numbered 1 to 39 and check the stability of spillway blocks 8 to 12.
- July 2025: Jain’s description of the depression as a high-risk void was reported, with a first-phase repair estimate of about Rs 200 crore.
- October 2025: the 31 May deadline was reported unmet, with Rs 780 crore earmarked for the plunge pool.
The August 2020 Fire
On the night of 20 August 2020, at about 10:30 pm, a fire broke out at the control panel of Unit 1 in the underground left bank station. 17 people were inside and 8 got out. Nine died, 7 of them TSGENCO employees and 2 workers of a battery supplier, according to POWER magazine’s report of 25 August 2020, and the CID opened an investigation on 24 August.
What Lies Around Srisailam Dam?
Nagarjuna Sagar is the next big dam downstream, 124.66 m high in the CWC register and built for irrigation and power. It doubles as Srisailam’s lower lake for pumped storage, and it was placed under CRPF oversight after the standoff of November 2023.
The Srisailam temple of Mallikarjuna, one of the twelve jyotirlingas, shares its campus with the Bhramaramba Shakti Peetha and stands in Nandyal district of Andhra Pradesh, not on the border. The note on the Srisailam Mallikarjuna temple covers its history and architecture.
The forest is the Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve, 5,937 sq km in the NTCA’s figures, with a core of 3,721 sq km; the Nandyal district administration dates the tiger project near Srisailam to 1983. After bifurcation, Telangana notified its part as the Amrabad Tiger Reserve on 6 February 2015, so in effect the dam’s right bank faces the Andhra Pradesh reserve and its left bank faces Amrabad. The note on tiger reserves in India sets it among the others.
Srisailam Dam Today
Today Srisailam is a KRMB-listed project that the two states still run, with a repair order on its plunge pool that has run past its deadline:
- Legal position: the spillway and both power houses sit in Schedule-2, but Telangana’s resolution of 12 February 2024 made any handover conditional.
- Safety: on 21 January 2026 the CWC constituted a Technical Expert Group of central and state engineers, including a KRMB director, to assess the plunge pool damage the NDSA flagged.
- Water and power: on 5 September 2026 the KRMB told Telangana to stop hydel generation at Nagarjuna Sagar immediately and objected to its generation at Srisailam, saying scarce water must go first to drinking needs under the Eleventh Schedule of the 2014 Act.
- Forest: the dam’s two banks border two tiger reserves, so works near the dam also answer to wildlife law.
The September 2026 order is the 35 TMC problem from earlier in this note, playing out in real time. When water is short, the board sides with drinking water over the turbines.
How to Study Srisailam Dam for Exams
Srisailam sits where three syllabus lines cross, which is why one dam repays the time spent on it:
- GS Paper I: location of major rivers and dams, with the Krishna basin as the worked example.
- GS Paper II: inter-state water disputes under Article 262 and the river boards of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.
- GS Paper III: hydropower and pumped storage under infrastructure, and dam safety under disaster management.
The theme is tested through its bigger questions rather than by name. Mains 2013 GS Paper II asked, “Constitutional mechanisms to resolve the inter-state water disputes have failed to address and solve the problems. Is the failure due to structural or process inadequacy or both? Discuss.” Srisailam is the cleanest post-2014 example for that answer, because a board and a tribunal are both in play on the same water. In Prelims, geography accounts for 82 of the 1,403 questions in the site’s Prelims question bank.
Seven facts carry most of what gets asked:
- River and site: the Krishna, in a Nallamala gorge, on the border of Nandyal (Andhra Pradesh) and Nagarkurnool (Telangana).
- Structure: a gravity dam, 145 m high and 512 m long, completed in 1982 per the CWC register.
- Reservoir: FRL 885 ft with 215.81 TMC gross storage; draw-down limits of 854 ft for irrigation and 834 ft for power.
- Power: right bank, Andhra Pradesh, 7 x 110 MW; left bank, Telangana, 6 x 150 MW reversible.
- Governance: KRMB under section 85 of the 2014 Act; Srisailam in Schedule-2 of the notification of 15 July 2021.
- Safety: NDSA under the Dam Safety Act, 2021, and plunge pool scour since the 2009 floods.
- Fire: 20 August 2020 at the left bank station, with nine dead.
The confusions that cost marks are few and predictable:
- Srisailam or Sriram Sagar? Sriram Sagar is on the Godavari in Telangana, per the CWC register; Srisailam is on the Krishna.
- Which bank is whose? Stand on the dam facing downstream: Andhra Pradesh’s power house is on your right and Telangana’s on your left.
- Board or tribunal? The KRMB runs shared works; KWDT-II allocates water.
- Which tiger reserve? Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam on the Andhra Pradesh side, Amrabad on the Telangana side.
Set Srisailam beside its siblings in the Krishna basin, using the CWC register’s own figures:
| Dam | River | State in CWC register | Height | Purpose in CWC register |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Srisailam | Krishna | Andhra Pradesh | 145 m | Hydropower |
| Nagarjuna Sagar | Krishna | Telangana | 124.66 m | Irrigation and hydropower |
| Almatti | Krishna | Karnataka | 49.29 m | Irrigation and hydropower |
Srisailam is the tallest of the three and the only one the register lists for power alone. The note on Almatti dam covers the river’s upstream end and its own height dispute.
Srisailam rewards the aspirant who learns one mechanism instead of ten numbers. A dam built for power now carries canals for two states, and a central board holds the legal keys without yet holding the gates. If you can explain why 854 ft and 834 ft are different numbers, you can write the federalism answer and the energy answer from the same page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which river is the Srisailam dam built on?
The Srisailam dam is built across the Krishna, in a deep gorge of the Nallamala hills. The Krishna here forms the border between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the next big dam downstream is Nagarjuna Sagar.
Is Srisailam dam in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana?
It sits on the border of the two states. The right bank lies in Nandyal district of Andhra Pradesh and the left bank in Nagarkurnool district of Telangana, and each bank has its own power house run by that state’s generating company. The CWC’s dam register lists the project under Andhra Pradesh.
What is the height of Srisailam dam?
The dam is 145 m high and 512 m long, according to the Central Water Commission and the Krishna River Management Board. Measured from its deepest foundation, the KRMB gives a height of 143.26 m.
What is the power capacity of the Srisailam project?
The project has 1,670 MW in two power houses. The right bank station of Andhra Pradesh has 7 units of 110 MW, and the underground left bank station of Telangana has 6 reversible units of 150 MW that can also pump water back into the reservoir.
What is the storage capacity of Srisailam dam?
At its full reservoir level of 885 ft, the reservoir holds a gross storage of about 215.81 TMC, according to the KRMB. The lake may be drawn down to 854 ft when water is held for irrigation and to 834 ft for power generation.
Who controls the Srisailam dam?
A notification of 15 July 2021 under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 placed the dam’s spillway and both power houses under the Krishna River Management Board from 14 October 2021. In practice the two states still operate their power houses, and a full handover to the board remains contested.
What is the plunge pool problem at Srisailam dam?
The riverbed below the spillway, where the falling water lands, has been scoured into a deep pit since the 2009 floods. The National Dam Safety Authority’s chairman called it a ‘high-risk void’ in 2025 and repairs with concrete tetrapods were ordered, and in January 2026 the CWC set up a technical expert group to assess the damage.
What happened at the Srisailam power station in 2020?
On the night of 20 August 2020, a fire broke out in the underground left bank power station on the Telangana side. Nine people died, and a CID investigation into the cause began a few days later.
Practice Questions
Prelims
1. Consider the following statements about the Srisailam dam: 1. It is built across the Krishna in the Nallamala hills. 2. Its left bank power house belongs to Andhra Pradesh. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: (a) The left bank station belongs to Telangana; Andhra Pradesh runs the right bank station.
2. Consider the following pairs of dam and river: 1. Srisailam: Krishna 2. Sriram Sagar: Godavari 3. Almatti: Tungabhadra. Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 1 and 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (b) Almatti stands on the Krishna itself in Karnataka, not on the Tungabhadra.
3. Consider the following statements about the Krishna River Management Board: 1. It was constituted under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. 2. It is a tribunal constituted under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: (a) The board was constituted under section 85 of the 2014 Act; the tribunal for the Krishna is KWDT-II, a separate body.
4. The left bank power station at Srisailam can run in pumping mode. Which reservoir serves as its lower reservoir?
- (a) Jurala
- (b) Nagarjuna Sagar
- (c) Pulichintala
- (d) Almatti
Answer: (b) The pumped storage scheme uses Srisailam as the upper reservoir and Nagarjuna Sagar, directly downstream, as the lower one.
5. Consider the following statements: 1. The Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve lies in the Nallamala hills, an offshoot of the Eastern Ghats. 2. Telangana notified its part of the erstwhile Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve as the Amrabad Tiger Reserve. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: (c) The NTCA describes the Nallamalai as an offshoot of the Eastern Ghats, and Telangana notified the Amrabad Tiger Reserve in February 2015.
Mains
- Dam failures are always catastrophic, especially on the downstream side, resulting in a colossal loss of life and property. Analyze the various causes of dam failures. Give two examples of large dam failures. (10 marks, 150 words) Previous year: Mains 2023, GS Paper III.
- The Srisailam dam was built for power but now feeds canals and lift schemes in two states. Explain how this change of role lies behind the Andhra Pradesh-Telangana water dispute and assess the role of the Krishna River Management Board. (15 marks, 250 words)
- Pumped storage can turn existing reservoirs into energy storage. Discuss with reference to the Srisailam left bank power station and its dependence on the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir. (10 marks, 150 words)
- What is a plunge pool? Examine why scour below a spillway threatens dam safety, with reference to Srisailam, and evaluate the response under the Dam Safety Act, 2021. (15 marks, 250 words)
- River management boards created under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 have struggled to take operational control of shared projects. Critically examine the reasons. (10 marks, 150 words)