Large Dam In Southern India To Be Opened On Aug. 21st -- The Governor of Madras, Lt. Col. the Rt. Hon. Sir George Frederick Stanley, is to open the Mettur Dam recently constructed by the Madras Government across the largest South Indian river, the Cauvery, 240 miles from its source in the Western Ghats.The dam is, in some of its features the largest in the world. The reservoir and irrigation canal system has taken nine years to build and 1,300,000 acres 125 miles away in the Cauvery delta will be irrigated. October 1, 1934. (Photo by Sport & General Press Agency, Limited).