City’s water stock to last till April 2022
MUMBAI: Owing to heavy rainfall in Mumbai and its neighbouring areas in the past two weeks, water levels in the seven lakes supplying drinking water to the city crossed 70% on Wednesday. The city now has a water stock of around 260 days that will last till April 2022.
Civic officials said it was very likely that the city might not have any water cuts this year. However, it will continue monitoring rainfall throughout August. A BMC official said, “Total lake level going above 85%-90% is considered to be safe, even 70% is safe, but we also need to have rainfall in August to not have any water cuts.”
According to BMC’S data, four lakes — Tulsi, Vihar, Tansa and
Modak Sagar — have overflowed so far. These lakes have 100% water stock except for Tansa which has 99% stock. Tulsi Lake, located inside the city, was the first to overflow on July 16 followed by Vihar Lake on July 18 and Modak Sagar and Tansa on July 22.
It was between July 16 and July 23 that the catchment areas received the maximum rainfall. On July 17, the overall water level in seven lakes was just 17% and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was considering announcing a water cut.
However, the water level had crossed the 50%-mark by July 22, 60%-mark on July 24 and 70%-mark on July 28. Last year on July 28, the total water stock in the seven lakes was 32% and it was 75% in 2019. Bhatsa, which supplies 55% of the total annual water requirement, has 64% water as compared to 36% last year at this time. Upper Vaitarna has 48% water as of Tuesday. Last year at this time, it had only 9%. The water level at Middle Vaitarna is 68% as compared to 32% last year at this time.