is located at border of the Erode, Salem, and Dharmapuri districts, and is approximately one and half hours travel-distance by road from the district headquarters. Palamalai ("malai" meaning "hill" in Tamil language) is an offshoot of the Eastern Ghats, geographically contiguous with the BR hills Biligiriranga Hills range as they reach out to merge with the Western Ghats at Nilgiris. The town houses the Stanley Reservoir, which is a standing example of British stone masonry, and the dam. The reservoir capacity touches 120 feet when full, and can rise a few feet beyond its full capacity during surplus seasons. The town is hemmed to a narrow strip of less than a kilometre in width by the Cauvery let out by the Dam on the east, and Eli Karadu (Mouse hill) on the west. This forms an interesting pattern of three similar peaks with identical longer shoulders to their left, increasing in height from the Dam's crest level about a from sea level in the north to about peak in the Palamalai. Stanley Reservoir Mettur Dam, which forms Stanley Reservoir, is constructed across the Kaveri River in Tamil Nadu. It was constructed in 1934 and took 9 years to complete. Maximum height and width of the Dam are 214 and 171 feet respectively. Maximum storage height is 120 feet. Mettur Dam receives the water from both Kabini Dam and Krishna Raja Sagara Dam located in Karnataka. There are 2 hydroelectric power stations in Mettur Dam, the first constructed during British rule and the second during the Indian Republic. There is a park at the base of the dam called Ellis Park maintained by the Tamil Nadu Public Works Department. Electrical power Mettur is one of the sources of electricity for Tamil Nadu. It has thermal and hydroelectric power stations. The 840-megawatt thermal power station acts as one of the base load power plants for Tamil Nadu each. A new power station has also been constructed with a capacity of 600 megawatts. There are two hydroelectric power stations at Mettur, called Dam and Tunnel Power Houses, respectively. Dam Power House has a capacity of 40 MW, and Tunnel Power House has a capacity of 200 MW. Mettur also has several barriage power houses located in the bank of Kaveri River, namely Chekkanur, Nerinjipettai, Koneripatti, UratchiKottai, and Bhavani Kattalai Barriage. It has one of the largest private sector power suppliers in Madras Aluminium