Visakhapatnam Water Facts

The largest source is the Godavari and Yeleru, up to 190 km away

About 380 MLD is available from nine sources (GVMC's figures; CGWB's tables carry the same quantities unchanged since its June 2022 report), and about 182 MLD of it comes from the Godavari and Yeleru system. CGWB lists the source at 190 km from the city, and the water reaches the city through the Yeleru canal. The June 2022 report (AAP 2020-21) said GVMC was able to draw 345.5 MLD of the 380. CGWB gives this source as 182 to 204 MLD; 182 is the figure that makes its own 380 MLD total add up. We have not found a figure that splits it between the two rivers. The next largest, Raiwada, gives 72.5 MLD.

The city shares its largest supply canal with the steel plant

On 11 March 2021, the only day for which we have found GVMC's split, 41.641 million gallons of the Yeleru canal's tail-end water went to the city and 35.640 to the RINL steel plant, with the rest to APIIC's industrial parks, NTPC, the port and rural water supply (0.900). The canal was first built to serve the steel plant. The sheet prints no unit for this split; it is read as million gallons a day, the unit of the sheet's other columns.

Litres a person a day, against a 135 litre standard

The draft Green City Action Plan (prepared by IFC for GVMC, posted by GVMC for comment on 19 Oct 2024) puts average supply at 105 to 110 litres a person a day against the national standard of 135. It is a city-wide average, and the plan does not say how it was worked out.

Data-centre campuses, by their clearances

Environmental clearances issued in April and June 2026 for three data-centre campuses list total water requirements of 267, 234 and 307 kilolitres a day and name Rural Water Supply and Sanitation as the source of water. Part of each total is the campus's own treated wastewater, recycled on site, so the claim on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation is the fresh water: 239, 207 and 246 kilolitres a day, 0.69 MLD together (0.81 MLD with the recycled water). No cooling-water source is stated. A separate December 2024 clearance for APIIC's data-centre and technology park at Madhurawada, inside the city, lists a total water requirement of 2,644 kilolitres a day, of which fresh water, capped at 1,429 kilolitres a day, is to be met from GVMC's supply and the other 1,215 is to be recycled water from the park's own sewage treatment plant; the clearance records APIIC's request for the allotment as under process, and we have not found a GVMC allotment order. Press reports of August 2026 quoted the state IT minister as telling the Assembly that a 6.5 GW cluster would need about 3 TMC of water a year; we have not found the Assembly's own record.

Three of the reservoirs that supply the city, against a year earlier

Raiwada, Thatipudi and Meghadrigedda, three of the reservoirs that supply the city, together held 39% of their live capacity on 15 October 2026, against 93% on the same date a year earlier. Yeleru, the reservoir behind the city's largest source, held 63% against 85%. GVMC's own Mudasarlova reservoir and the Gambheeram reservoir are not in the state's daily feed. Live storage is the water above each dam's lowest outlet.

11 water treatment plants

The draft Green City Action Plan gives GVMC 11 water treatment plants with 489 MLD of capacity between them. We have not found a plant-by-plant list with commissioning years.

An average year's rain over the city

Our average of IMD's 0.25-degree gridded rainfall for the grid cell over the city (17.75 N, 83.25 E) is about 1,043 mm a year over 1970-2020. Over 1991-2020 the same cell gives 1,053 mm, close to the 1,054.5 mm normal of IMD's Visakhapatnam airport observatory; IMD's other Visakhapatnam observatory (station 43150) has a 1991-2020 normal of 1,113.1 mm, and the AP planning department's normal for the district is 1,117.7 mm.