Visakhapatnam lake restoration

The city's oldest piped-water source, owned and maintained by GVMC. On 11 March 2021, GVMC's one-day supply status filed with the National Green Tribunal shows nothing supplied from it, against a normal 0.50 million gallons a day. GVMC's 2018 environmental assessment for an ADB-funded lake project gives its storage as 1.5 million cubic metres, which it calls the original capacity, and 0.75 million cubic metres as the present capacity at full tank level, with no survey or date behind either figure. It says the lake and its catchment have changed over the years, and proposed desilting the lake bed. The same report found two of its three inlets still flowing in: the stream from the Kailasa hills stopped reaching it after a compound wall, a trench and the BRTS road were built across its path.

builder: Public Works Department, for the town council - fed by Hill streams from Dharapalem and Kambalakonda; catchment 16.4 sq km

The 1907 district gazetteer describes the town's first water works: the perennial Hanumanta Vanka stream near Simhachalam 'dammed up to form a reservoir with a catchment area of six square miles and a capacity of 25 million cubic feet', piped 5.5 miles to a service reservoir near the jail. Waltair stayed on wells. The gazetteer does not use the name Mudasarlova; the stream, the hills and the catchment match it. The park around the lake is one of the oldest public parks in Andhra Pradesh (GVMC, 2018).

A live drinking-water source at Kamarapalem on the city's western side, fed by the Meghadri Gedda and the Naravagedda. On 11 March 2021, GVMC's one-day supply status filed with the National Green Tribunal shows 8.44 million gallons a day supplied from it (5.40 to the Mindhi plant and 3.04 of raw water to the Naval Dockyard (DGNP) and MES), against a normal 7.65. CWC's National Register of Large Dams (2019) lists the dam as operated and maintained by the state Water Resources Department, which reports its level and storage daily on APWRIMS, with a design capacity of 1.169 TMC. In 2018 GVMC prepared an ADB-funded 3 MWp floating solar subproject on the reservoir; its assessment describes the reservoir surface as owned by GVMC.

Built in 1977 and commissioned in 1979 with 29.31 million cubic metres of storage. In 1989 its drawal was raised to 10 million gallons a day and its storage to 33.1024 million cubic metres at a full reservoir level of 18.60 m (GVMC, 2018).

A natural freshwater lake at Kondakarla in Atchutapuram mandal, Anakapalli district, south-west of the city, fed by a channel from the Sarada. It does not appear among GVMC's listed water sources. It is in the state Water Resources Department's minor-irrigation tank register (MI012625). CPCB samples it as a lake station (2353) under the national water-quality programme: the lowest dissolved-oxygen reading each year was 2.5 to 3.6 mg/L in 2020 to 2023, under the 5 mg/L CPCB prints as its bathing-water criterion, and 4.5 mg/L in 2024.

In 1907 the district gazetteer called it 'the pretty natural lake six miles south of Anakapalle', which 'swarms with lotuses, fish and wildfowl', one of 'the very few real freshwater lakes in the Presidency'. Its irrigation chapter (p.105) adds that the lake 'has been artificially enlarged'. VMRDA's draft master plan (June 2021) calls it a bird sanctuary with 70 species of birds. It is not on the MoEFCC wetlands portal's Ramsar list or its wetlands of international significance (checked 14 Oct 2026).

The tail-end point of the Yeleru canal. The draft Green City Action Plan (IFC for GVMC), posted by GVMC for comment on 19 Oct 2024, says the Yeleru and Godavari source supplies 60 percent of the city's water demand. GVMC's source table for the ADB (draft March 2016, final January 2019; its demand figures are for 2014) lists 9.09 MLD available from filtration at the reservoir. The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (RINL) began a new Kanithi balancing reservoir in July 2016, on 225 acres, costed at Rs 465.85 crore in its 2018 expansion filing to MoEFCC.

builder: RINL (Visakhapatnam Steel Plant), for the new reservoir begun in July 2016 - fed by The Yeleru Left Main Canal, carrying Yeleru and Godavari water

An irrigation reservoir on the city's north-eastern side that also supplies the city for part of the year: water goes to GVMC from 1 March to 30 June every year. On 11 March 2021, GVMC's one-day supply status filed with the NGT shows nothing supplied from it, against a normal 0.60 million gallons a day. Most of its 640-acre command area is now built up; about 250 acres were still irrigated in 2021 (APPCB to the National Green Tribunal). CWC's National Register of Large Dams (2019) lists the dam as operated and maintained by the state Water Resources Department, with a gross storage of 3.18 million cubic metres.