The Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, one of the largest masonry dams in the world, is built on the river:

The Nagarjuna Sagar Dam is built across the Krishna river at Nagarjuna Sagar, on the border between the Nalgonda district of Telangana and the Palnadu district of Andhra Pradesh.

Key facts:

• It is one of the largest and tallest masonry dams in the world, about 124 metres high and about 1.6 km long.
• Its reservoir is one of the largest man-made lakes in India.
• Construction began in 1955, when Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone, and the dam was completed in 1967.
• It was one of the earliest multipurpose river valley projects in independent India.

Purposes:

• Irrigation through the Right Bank Canal (Jawahar Canal) in Andhra Pradesh and the Left Bank Canal (Lal Bahadur Canal) in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
• Hydroelectric power generation.
• Supply of drinking water to Hyderabad and other areas.

Name and history:

• The dam is named after Acharya Nagarjuna, the great 2nd-century Buddhist philosopher of the Mahayana school.
• The area was an important Buddhist centre, called Nagarjunakonda, under the Ikshvaku dynasty.

Before the reservoir submerged the valley, archaeologists excavated many Buddhist stupas, monasteries and other remains. Some were rebuilt on the island of Nagarjunakonda in the reservoir, which now has a museum.

Water sharing:

• After the formation of Telangana in 2014, there have been disputes between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over control of the dam and water release.
• The Krishna River Management Board oversees the projects.

Other dams on the Krishna:

Almatti Dam (Karnataka), Srisailam Dam (upstream of Nagarjuna Sagar), Pulichintala and the Prakasam Barrage at Vijayawada.

Why not the other options?

• ✗The Bhima, Tungabhadra and Musi are tributaries of the Krishna; the Tungabhadra Dam is at Hosapete, Karnataka.