Pothundi Dam is an irrigation dam near Pothundi village in the

Palakkad Palakkad (), Renaming of cities in India, also known as Palghat, historically known as Palakkattussery, is a city and a municipality in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kerala. It is the administrative headquarters of P ...

district of

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

state, India. Constructed in the 19th century, it is considered one of the oldest dams in India. It provides irrigation to an area of in the Palakkad district and drinking water supply to the Nemmara, Ayalur, Melarcode Panchayat. An unusual feature of the earth dam is the core wall, which is built with a mixture of

jaggery Jaggery is a List of unrefined sweeteners, traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar consumed in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, North America, Central America, Brazil and Africa. It is a concentrated product of Sugarcane juice, cane jui ...

and

quick lime Calcium oxide (chemical formula, formula: calcium, Caoxygen, O), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, corrosive substance, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The bro ...

A popular festival held on the shores of the reservoir is known as the Nemmara Vallengi Vela Festival.

Topography

The dam is built in the Pothundy village across the Meenichiladipuzha and Padipuzha rivers, which are tributaries of the Aylampuzha river, about upstream of the confluence, in the backdrop of the Nelliampathi hills. It drains a catchment area of at Full Reservoir Level, which is thickly forested with teak wood trees. The dam is in the Chittur

taluk A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative ...

, about from Nemmara and from

and from

Nelliampathi Nelliyampathy (also spelled as Nelliampathi) is a hill station, located from Palakkad, state of Kerala, India. Geography * Nelliampathy is surrounded by tea and coffee plantations. * The village has its own gram panchayat and forms a part ...

History

The dam, built in the 19th century for irrigation, was developed as a medium irrigation project completed in 1971 at a cost of Rs.23.425 million. The dam also provides water supply, and the reservoir has been developed as an important inland fisheries project.

Features

The dam is an earth-filled structure built to a height of and a length of . The gross storage capacity of the reservoir is and the live storage, excluding dead storage, is . It has a spillway section to route the designed flood discharge. The irrigation component of the project, completed in 1971, consists of a long right bank canal and an left bank canal, which provides irrigation to an area of in the Chittur and Alathur taluks. In view of favorable soil conditions, the irrigation practice under this project is a rice-based system in the Palghat plains. The storage from the reservoir is also utilized to the extent of for providing drinking water supply to Nemmara and Ayalure villages. Reservoir fishing is well developed and covers an area of . The various species of river fishes found in the reservoir are murrel,

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...

tilapia Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically mos ...

, rohu (''Labeo rohita''),

barbus ''Barbus'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. The type species of ''Barbus'' is the common barbel, first described as ''Cyprinus barbus'' and now named ''Barbus barbus''. ''Barbus'' is the namesake genus of the subfamily Ba ...

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

common carp The common carp (''Cyprinus carpio''), also known as European carp, Eurasian carp, or simply carp, is a widespread freshwater fish of eutrophic waters in lakes and large rivers in Europe and Asia.Fishbase''Cyprinus carpio'' Linnaeus, 1758/ref>Ark ...

(''Cyprinus carpio''), mrigal,

gourami Gouramis, or gouramies , are a group of fresh water, freshwater Anabantiformes, anabantiform fish that comprise the family (biology), family Osphronemidae. The fish are native to Asia—from the Indian Subcontinent to Southeast Asia and northeas ...

, and

catla Catla (''Labeo catla''; ) also known as the major South Asian carp, is an economically important South Asian freshwater fish in the carp family Cyprinidae. It is native to rivers and lakes in northern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakis ...

. According to FAO statistics, the stocking is 1.241 million fingerlings per year with stocking rate of 684 fingerlings per ha per year. The fisheries development in the reservoir has been done under the Indo-German Reservoir Fisheries Development Project. According to the State Fisheries Department, the fish catch was about per year during 1992–93 with a yield of 19.4 per ha. The production units proposed under this project were broodfish stock, mini-hatchery, and rearing components, apart from the pens to be set up in the reservoir periphery and the floating cages offshore.

References

Bibliography

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External links