Godavari River arises near Nasik, which is in Maharastra at a level of 1067m and runs for a length of 1,465km before falling into the Bay of Bengal. The Manjra, the Wardha, the Penganga, the Parvara, the Kolab, the Indravati and The Purna are the major tributaries of this river.

Godavari River covers an area of 312,812 km, which is almost 9.5% of the entire area of the countries land cover. The river basin lies down in the states of (Andhra Pradesh)-73,201km, (Orissa)-17,752km, (Maharastra)-152,199km, (Karnataka)-4,405km, (Madhya Pradesh)-65,255km.

Godavari has a structural area of 31.3m.ha.The Godavari river basin comprises of large rolling plains separated by a low flat top hill ranges. The most important types of soils found are lateritic soil, red soils, alluvium soils, black soil, alkaline soils, saline soils and mixed soils.

An approximate yearly water potential of this river is 110.5 km out of which 76.3 km of water is usable. The total fertile area in the basin is 18.9 million ha, and this is 9.7% total fertile land of the country.

The current use of the water of River Godavari is 41.0-km.The storage capacity of this river has increased from 1.6km to 19.5km.Vishnupuri Prakalp which is the Asia’s largest lift irrigation is built on this river just 5km from the city of Nanded.The potential of hydropower generation of this river is assessed as 5091MW.