E-Paper
Mumbai’s lakes have water stock for over 100 days
Mumbai’s seven lakes have water that will suffice for more than 100 days, as lake levels increased to 33
Mumbai’s seven lakes have water that will suffice for more than 100 days, as lake levels increased to 33.22% on Tuesday from Monday’s 28.68%.
As on Tuesday, Mumbai’s lakes had 480,783 million litres (ML) of water, in comparison to 415,175ML on Monday. Within 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday morning, water in the seven lakes increased by 65,608ML.
BMC supplies 3,850ML of water per day to the city.
On Friday, the water quantity was at 17%, prompting Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) hydraulics department to consider water cut for the city, had the situation not improved over the next few days.
On July 20 last year, Mumbai’s lakes had 397,607 ML or 27.47% useful water content, while in 2019, the lakes had 751,197 ML (51.9%) of useful water content.
Mumbai city receives its drinking water supply from Upper Vaitarna, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Middle Vaitarna, Bhatsa, Vihar and Tulsi lakes, whose total water capacity is 1,447,363ML.
Despite the swell in lake levels, the useful water content in Upper Vaitarna remains at 0%. In the 24 hours up to 6am on Tuesday, the lake and its catchment area received 74mm rainfall, and its water level rose by 0.55 metres. On the same day last year, Upper Vaitarna had 12,899 ML useful water content, against 0ML this year.
While Vihar lake overflowed on Sunday morning, Tulsi lake overflowed on Friday. Both these lakes now have 100% useful water content.
A senior official from BMC explained, “We have the rainfall months of August and September to catch up on our lake levels. But we are in a wait-and-watch situation at present.”
