#The statue of unity full

The palace is a favourite location for Bhojpuri film shoots throughout the year.Ĭhanod is a city of temples located at the confluence of the Narmada, Orsang and Saraswati rivers, and is therefore considered highly sacred. It was once the centre of a princely state and famous for its palaces. Rajpipla is 36 kilometre away from the Sardar Sarovar Dam. The word ‘Shoolpaneshwar’ refers to Lord Shiva portrayed as having a ‘Shool’ or ‘Trishul’ in his hand or `Pani’. However, a new Shoolpaneshwar temple was later built near Rajpipla. The original Shoolpaneshwar Temple was submerged due to the Sardar Sarovar Reservoir. The sanctuary has the rare distinction of having flying squirrels. The sanctuary is a home to 32 species of mammals, several species of reptiles, 198 species of birds and many animals like sloth bear, leopard, rhesus macaque, common mongoose, Indian civet cat, Indian porcupine, four-horned antelope, barking deer, chital, pangolin, flying squirrel, python, snakes, lizards, tortoises, etc. There are more than 575 species of flowering plants like Timru, Amla, Khair, Aritha, Sadad, Tanachh, Karanj, Bamboo, Mahuda, Bor, Herde, Amaltas etc. The flora of the ecosystem consists of semi-evergreen to moist deciduous forest. The sanctuary derives its name ‘Shoolpaneshwar’ from the historic temple of Lord Shiva, which once existed in this region on the banks of river Narmada.

The thick vegetative ground cover not only provides endless greenery but also a huge habitat to a variety of life forms. It includes a major watershed feeding two major reservoirs with the Rajpipla hills as a backdrop. Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary is spread over an area of 607.70 square kilometre. Annually, 11.7 billion cubic metre of water is conveyed through this canal. It is the origin of 458 kilometre long Narmada Main Canal which is one of the world’s largest concrete-lined irrigation canals with a capacity of 40,000 cubic feet/second.

The Head Regulator of Main Canal is an off-taking structure and is 82.6 metres long having 5 radial gates of size 12.20 metres x 13.50 metres. The Godbole Gate releases water from the Sardar Sarovar Dam back to the river Narmada, thus sustaining the downstream eco-system.

It has six Francis type reversible turbine generators with 200 MegaWatt installed capacity each. The River Bed Power House is an underground power house stationed on the right bank of the river located about 165 metres downstream of the dam.

#The statue of unity full

The Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of the Sardar Sarovar Dam is fixed at RL 138.68 metres (455 feet). The reservoir occupies an area of 37,000 hectares and has linear stretch of 214 kilometre of water and an average width of 1.77 kilometre. This dam, with its spillway discharging capacity of 85,000 cubic metre per second (3 million cubic foot per second), stands third in the world, Gazenba (113,000 cubic metre per second) in China and Tucurri (100,000 cubic metre per second) in Brazil being the first two. In terms of volume of concrete involved for gravity dams, this dam is ranked as the second largest in the world with an aggregate volume of 6.82 million cubic metre only after Grand Coulee Dam in the USA with a total volume of 8.0 million cubic metre being the largest. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is the third highest concrete dam (163 metres) in India after Bhakra (226 metres) in Himachal Pradesh and Lakhwar (192 metres) in Uttar Pradesh.

Shoolpaneshwar Mahadev Mandir Dhwajarohan.

Shreshtha Bharat Bhavan (Ramada Encore).