Supa Dam Backwaters, Dandeli
I was ready to skip visit to Supa Dam as there was news that there is not much water in reservoir. But on the second day of my stay at Dandeli, my guide Mahesh told he would give me a quick peek view of Supa Dam backwaters. We did not go to Supa Dam but he took on an embankment which was created to keep the backwaters away from flooding the villages in Dandeli. At that point water had receded a great distance and some tourists walked down on the popped up land to the backwater shore.
Mahesh told an interesting story then. That his grandfather had worked on this embankment. He was a Tamilian and his family originally hails from Salem in Tamil Nadu. They are now settled in Dandeli. He speaks fluent Hindi & Kannada. This story marks a true picture of the multi – ethnic Dandeli.
For records, Supa dam is the second largest dam in Karnataka. Built in river Kali, the dam is 101 meters high and 322 meters long concrete gravity dam. It has a catchment area of 1057 square km and a storage capacity of 145 tmcft. At the foot of the dam there are two turbines which generate 50 mega watt electricity each. Annually they generate 542 million units of electricity. The power house started functioning from 1985.