Scenic Beauty and culture of Tehri and Uttarkashi

Hello friends,

Due to problem with network connectivity I could not post my blogs for 2 days. Well now I will tell you about Tehri Dam. The dam is a 250 meters high rock and is known to be one of the highest fdams in the world.

The dam is situated on the sangam of Belangna an Bhagirathi rivers. The dam is 842 metres in depth (river depth) but the permission to the depth of river given by DM of the area is 820 meters due to precautions taken to avoid flooding of low lying areas.

The dam is 26 storeys in height, 13 storeys above ground and rest 13 underground. The river length here is 64 km. The dam contains so much water that if ever the dam breaks then the catastrophe would effect the lives of half a million people.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The dam is actually famous because the electricity produced here is not produced through open flow of water, but the water is transmitted here through pipes. The electricity produced is 1000 MW at present. A new project which is being constructed at the moment will produce 1000 MW more electricity. It will be produced through same water which will be again transmitted through pipes up the hill and then producing electricity.

The dam hill consists of 286 tunnels through which the water flows out of which 51 are the main tunnels.

Below is the picture of the old Tehri town which was submerged under water when a cloud burst occur in the town. The palace of King and the whole town actually submerged under water just living a small portion of the remain-outs above water at 820m height above the river bed level.

There are total of 5 gates through which the water travels out of the dam.

Out of the 5 gates 3 are the slide gates. 2 are the overflow wells through which the water flows whenever there is an overflow. 

The dam is being maintained by HCC after USSR denied to maintain the dam. HCC was trying to build the dam for 30-35 years but without a success. Then a saint predicted the reason and then asked them to pass a small stream of Bhagirathi through the dam and then after some time increase the flow of stream slowly and continuously. Then the dam became successful and all the other problems were also solved.

This is the picture of a saint who is moving onfoot towards Gangotri. This depicts the aastha of people in Gangotri. He travels 100s of Km on foot to worship Ganga.

This shows the hard life of people living in mountains. They have to work all the day cutting and edging the mountain at a very low wage. They have to at-least walk 10 Km a day to do there work. Right side picture shows the condition of houses there.

After this I traveled to Uttarkashi. The main attraction of this place is Kashi Vishvanath Temple.

The history of the temple is as follows:                   

In Kedar Kahand of Skanda Purana, Lord Ashutosh has refered Uttarkashi as the Kashi of Kallyuga. He also mentions that he, along with his family, at the important spiritual places, pilgrim centers and spots, will reside, during the dark age, at this spot which houses an effulgent, self-manifest linga, one of the twelve, Jyotirlingams.                Lord Vishwanath sits within the temple in deep meditation from time immemorial, showering his blessing on all living beings. The stone Shivalinga is 56 cms in height and leans towards south. The Sanctum sanctorum of the Vishwanath temple also houses the statues of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Parviti, while Nandi, the bull keeps vigil in the outer chamber as vehicle.







The present temple was reconstructed by the Queen of Tehri Khaneti Devi, wife of king Shri Sudershan Shah, in the year 1857 AD. The stone temple is built in the Katyuri Style and sits on a rock foundation. It is a  fine example of the local Himalyan architecture.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

There is another temple which is situated beside the Vishwanath temple. The picture besides shows the Hanuman dhwaj at the temple.

This is the idol of Lord Hanuman at the Hanuman temple.

Well this is all for the day. Now in my next post I will tell you about more places I travel.

Thank You