Khadakwasla dam full, 1,000 cusecs water released into Mutha river

Khadakwasla dam in Pune, India overflowed due to heavy rain, leading to water being released into the Mutha river. Political parties and activists are urging the municipal commissioner to revoke water cuts, but the PMC will wait another week to review water stock in the dams before making a decision. The BJP, Shiv Sena, and Republican Party of India have all demanded that water cuts be withdrawn.

Due to incessant rain over the past few days, the Khadakwasla dam was filled to capacity forcing the administration to start releasing water into the Mutha river at 5 pm on Tuesday at the rate of 1,000 cusecs. As water began to be discharged from the dam, the water resources department alerted people living on the banks of the Mutha river and in low-lying areas against possible flooding. Whereas political parties and civic activists urged municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar to revoke the once-a-week water cut in existence in most parts of the city since May this year.

Authorities released 1,000 cusecs of water from Khadakwasla Dam into the Mutha river at 5pm on Tuesday. (HT PHOTO)

However, the water department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) said that it will wait for another week to review the water stock in the dams before taking a decision on the weekly water cut. PMC water department head Aniruddha Pawaskar said, “The civic body will review the water storage and rain situation after a week and then take a decision on the water cut.”

Another PMC official said that though the Khadakwasla dam is full, its storage capacity is less. “The PMC needs to wait for other dams namely Panshet, Temghar and Warasgaon to fill up before deciding on the water cut,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Shivajinagar, Siddharth Shirole, met Pawaskar and requested that the water cut be cancelled. “Given the satisfactory rainfall in the catchment areas over the past few days, I reached out to superintending engineer and head of the PMC water supply department, Aniruddha Pawaskar, and urged him to discontinue the once-a-week water cuts in the city. Pawaskar assured me that they will closely monitor the situation for one more week, assess the rainfall and storage, and then take an informed decision to roll back the water cuts,” Shirole tweeted.

Leaders from the Shiv Sena (UBT) met the municipal commissioner and submitted a written demand for withdrawal of the water cuts due to satisfactory rain and dams filling to capacity. Republican Party of India and former deputy mayor Siddharth Dhende also demanded that the water cuts be withdrawn.

Civic activist Vivek Velenkar wrote a letter to the municipal administration stating, “As the Khadakwasla dam has filled to capacity and the irrigation department has released water from the dam, there is no need for water cuts in the city.”

Water storage and rainfall till Tuesday 5 pm

Dam/rainfall mm/water storage in TMC/percentage

Khadakwasla/05/1.81/91.81%

Panshet/28/7.23/67.88%

Warasgaon/25/7.87/61.40%

Temghar/30/1.68/45.23%

Total storage in dams - 18.59 TMC