Tungabhadra Dam

The Tungabhadra Dam, also called Pampa Sagar, holds back the Tungabhadra river near Hosapete in Karnataka and serves irrigation, power generation and flood control. No stone masonry dam in India is larger, and it is one of only two in the country built without cement, the other being Mullaperiyar in Kerala. Its masonry is bound with surki, a mortar of mud and lime that was common when it was built.

The Hyderabad state and the Madras Presidency began the project in 1949, and it was completed in 1953, with Vepa Krishnamurthy, Pallimalli Papaiah and M.S. Tirumale Iyengar as chief engineers. They chose a labour-intensive design suited to the workforce of the time. It was meant to bring water to the famine-hit Rayalaseema districts, and a northern canal cuts through three ranges of hills and a tunnel named after Papaiah. The dam has stood for more than 70 years.