Lake levels rise, but water cuts to stay

The good news is lake levels have risen by 34,000 million litres over the past 13 days, as the monsoons sets in across Greater Mumbai.

The good news is lake levels have risen by 34,000 million litres over the past 13 days, as the monsoons sets in across Greater Mumbai.

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The bad news: The municipal corporation will not review the current 15 per cent water cut before July.

“The start of the monsoon has been good, but we will wait a little longer,” said Additional Municipal Commissioner Anil Diggikar.

With lake levels low after last year’s deficient monsoon, the BMC enforced a 15 per cent water cut for residential users and a 30 per cent cut for commercial users in August.

By the end of the summer, lake levels had fallen to record lows.

As water levels dipped beyond the drawable limit in April, the civic body had discontinued water supply from the Vihar and Upper Vaitarna lakes.

By June 7, collective water stocks across all six lakes stood at just 91,000 million litres.

Now, the municipal corporation wants to make sure the city will have enough water stocks to fall back on before releasing the city’s full supply of 3,000 million litres per day.

Early signs are encouraging. There has been much more rainfall in the catchment areas over the lakes this year.

By mid-June last year, there had still been no rainfall in these areas.

But, while the Vihar and Upper Vaitarna lake levels are already improving, officials said supply from these lakes has not yet resumed.

Mumbai receives its daily water supply from six lakes — Tansa, Modak Sagar, Vihar, Tulsi, Upper Vaitarna and Bhatsa.

While the Vihar and Tulsi lakes are in Mumbai’s national park area, the others are in neighbouring Thane district.