[1] The river rises at Sadasivakonda at an elevation of 1,040 m above sea level in the Narayanavanam Protected Forest in the eastern slopes of the Eastern Ghats in Chittoor district, flows initially in a general southerly direction.
It later flows in an easterly direction to join the southwest tip of the Pulicat Lake in Minjur Block, Tiruvallur district and then into the Bay of Bengal through tidal inlets after flowing in a 6-km long narrow lagoon separated by a barrier island.
It lies in Karvetinagar, KVB Puram, Nagalapuram, Narayanavanam, Nindra, Pichatur, Puttur, Satyavedu, Vadamalapet, Vedurukuppam and Vijayapuram mandals of Chittoor district, a little in Tada mandal in Nellore district, and Ellapuram, Arani, Gummidipundi, Minjur, Poondi and Sholavaram blocks in Gummidipundi, Ponneri, Tiruvallur and Utukkottai taluks of Tiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu.
The whole basin is dotted with a number of irrigation reservoirs of varying sizes with most of them located in the old stage.
Arniar dam with 49 million cubic meters live storage capacity was constructed in the year 1958 to irrigate 2,230 hectares land in Chitoor district in Andhra Pradesh.