7 MARATHWADA DAMS RUN DRY; EXPERTS POINT TO FLAWED PLAN

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has for decades relied on big dams to bring water to the state’s parched Marathwada region, but a closer look at how much water there is in the state’s major dams over the past five years tells a different story — that of large irrigation projects failing to address the state’s scarcity woes.

Of 11 major projects in central Maharashtra , seven including Jayakwadi, the biggest, currently have zero live water storage.

Live water storage is when water in the dam is high enough to flow out of the sluice gates. At least two of these dams, Lower Terna and Sina-Kolegaon, have zero dead storage of water — when water levels are too low to flow out — forcing authorities to tap into sub-surface water below the dam.

The figures were compiled by the state’s water resources department. They show four of these dams, constructed to supply water to the worst-hit districts of Beed, Latur and Osmanabad, have been surviving on dead water storage for the past year. And, three of these, including Manjra, Lower Terna and SinaKolegaon, have not seen live water storage since 2013.

Another big dam, Majalgaon, also known as stage- I I of Jayakwadi, has had dead water storage intermittently in 2013, 2015 and March 2016.

>> CONTINUED ON P8