History:
It is located around 110 km from Nellore, 100 km from Kavali and 15 km from Udayagiri. The total area of the village is 1014 hectares.The Gandipalem reservoir (aka P.Chenchu Ramaiah Resorvior) and dam were built as the irrigation source for 17 villages located in drought areas in Udaygiri and Varikuntapadu Mandals. The irrigated area registered under the project is 10.26 km².
The dam was built across Pillaperu river, a tributary to Manneru River. It is a gravity dam constructed with stone and brick masonry walls and four gates. The length of the dam is 388 meters and height of it is 20 meters above the foundation level. The early proposal to build a dam across the stream was done in 1938 with 34 lakhs budget, but it got dropped.It was approved in 1964 with 0.97 crore budget, but was only completed in 1986 with the total cost of 9.71 crores under seventh five-year plan.
The main source of the reservoir is river Manneru, an east flowing medium river that joins Coramandel coast. The 130 km long river Manneru starts near Pillipalli village of Kanigiri taluk of Prakasam district. Dokkalavagu, Uppuvagu, Pillaperu and Upputeru are the main tributaries of this river.
The reservoir gathers the river water between the two hillocks with an earthen dam on other side. The catchment area of 480.46 km² and maximum water level of 147.82 meters. The live storage capacity of the reservoir is 49.45 MCM or 1.7 TMC.