Srisailam Dam, Hydroelectric dam in Nandyal district, Andhra Pradesh, India

Srisailam Dam is a hydroelectric structure on the Krishna River in Andhra Pradesh, built from concrete with a crest length of 512 meters. The installation rises 145 meters above its foundation and creates a large reservoir that winds through the surrounding hills.

The project was launched in July 1963, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone; it had been proposed in 1960 as a power scheme. The dam, including its crest gates, was finished by December 1984, and the reservoir first filled to capacity in the 1985 monsoon. On 2 October 2009, a record inflow of 2.6 million cusecs raised the water level to 896 feet, above the 885-foot maximum, and all gates were opened.

The dam takes its name from Srisailam, the Shaivite temple town upstream, and the reservoir is officially called Neelam Sanjiva Reddy Sagar. The dam stands 0.8 km downstream of the Patalaganga bathing ghat, where pilgrims descend to the Krishna. Its water also feeds the Telugu Ganga canal, which supplies drinking water to Chennai.

The dam lies 200 km from Hyderabad, 250 km from Vijayawada and 180 km from Kurnool, reached by road through the Nallamala Hills. The dam wall is 0.8 km downstream of the Patalaganga bathing ghat at Srisailam temple town. The best views of the spillway and reservoir are from the road along the crest and from the temple town side.

The left-bank powerhouse is dug underground and holds six 150 MW reversible Francis pump-turbines, each able to pump 200 cubic metres per second. Built between 2001 and 2003 with Japanese financial aid, it lets the dam refill its own reservoir. A tail pond weir 14 km downstream, completed in 2017, holds the released water for pumping back.