The Kandaleru Dam is the part of Telugu Ganga Project, which supplies drinking water to the city of Chennai from the Srisailam Reservoir on Krishna River. Somasila Dam is linked with Kandaleru Reservoir by the canals. I Andhra Pradesh the Telugu Ganga Project also provides water for irrigation purpose through the canals. The Kandaleru Dam covers about 12 km of length area. The total capacity of the reservoir is 72000 mcf. The major parts of the Dam like Spillway, Head Regulator, and Sundial was engineered by ‘Shri Gudimella Raghupathi’.

The Kandaleru Dam is a part of the chains of dam involved in the Telugu Ganga Project. The project was approved in 1977, after an agreement between Tamil Nadu and the states from where Krishna River flows i.e. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. It was basically a work of interlinking the rivers through canals system so that the reach of water can increase to people and minimize the problem of water shortage in the states.

So, initially due to the low supply of water through canals, in 2002, Sathya Sai Baba, a religious guru took the matter in his hand and started the restoration of canals under the private work. After a lot of building work of canals and reservoirs, the project gets completed in the year 2004. Then, Poondi reservoir received Krishna river water for the first time. After this, re-construction and addition of canals and reservoirs, the Kandaleru Dam Poondi part of the canals were renamed as ‘Sai Ganga’.