JOIN USNow, water crisis looms large over Mumbai
A major water crisis is looming large over Mumbai— the business, banking and financial capital of India— with storage levels in dams dipping because of insufficient rainfall.
Though the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that southwest monsoon has entered Maharashtra, there has hardly been any rainfall in Mumbai. In addition, current water stocks may last for 20 to 30 days.
On Thursday, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) expressed concern over the water situation and asked people not to waste water.
Mumbai receives water from six reservoirs/dams - Upper Vaitarna, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Middle Vaitarna, Bhatsa, Vihar and Tulsi.
Totally, these are left with barely 4.95% of usable water stock in all the lakes. The BMC has asked the nearly two crores of citizens in Mumbai to use water judiciously.
"The civic administration has made arrangements of supplying water to the citizens up to July-end, using reserve stocks of water. All are requested to cooperate and the citizens must use water carefully," the BMC said.
It pointed out that as on June 27 (Thursday), the amount of water left in all lakes was a measly 71,574 million litres (4.95%). The comparative figures last year were 270,668 ML (18.70%) and in 2017 it was 351,081 ML (24.26%), indicating a huge shortfall. Water release from Upper Vaitarna has been stopped since June 24.
The weather forecast says that rains may pick up in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
According to IMD's deputy director general of meteorology, K S Hosalikar, the Konkan-Goa region is expected to receive heavy rainfall in the next 24 hours. South Konkan has received heavy to very heavy rainfall in places like Jaitapur, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Malvan and Devgad, where the rainfall was over 100 mm.