5 Things You Should Know About PM Modi Gift, Sardar Sarovar Dam

On his 67th birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a wonderful gift to the nation. Commissioning of an important infrastructure project, the Sardar Sarovar Dam was inaugurated almost 56 years after its foundation stone was laid.

# The Sardar Sarovar Dam is the second largest dam project in the world, both in terms of its size and volume.

# The foundation stone of this dam was laid in 1961 by the country’s first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. It was inaugurated 56 years later by the 14th prime minister of the country!

# Regarded as Gujarat’s lifeline, this dam is expected to provide water to 9,000 villages! Not just in Gujarat, but also in the neighboring states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

# The dam has two powerhouses – with a capacity to produce 4,141 crores units of electricity. The canal head powerhouse and the river bed powerhouse have the capacity to produce 250 MW and 1,200 MW of electricity respectively.

# The dam is 1.2-km-long and 163 meters deep and has capacity to irrigate over 18 lakh hectares of land in Gujarat itself. This speaks a lot about the grandeur of the dam.