Tansa overflows in Mumbai; Modak Sagar to be next

The total water storage capacity of Mumbai’s lakes is 14.47 lakh million litres.

Tansa lake, one of the seven lakes that supplies water to Mumbai, started to overflow on Thursday afternoon, as its water level touched 128.63m. Before Tansa, Tulsi overflowed on July 12.

The water level of Tansa lake touched 128.63m on Thursday. (HT Photo)

The total water storage capacity of Mumbai’s lakes is 14.47 lakh million litres. Of this, Tansa stores 1.45 lakh million litres of water, and Tulsi stores 8046 million litres of water. Tansa supplies 400 million litres a day to Mumbai, 10% of the water supplied to the city daily. It is located near Aatgaon in Thane district, while Tulsi is located inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Mumbai. According to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) hydraulics department, Tansa started to overflow at 2.50pm on Thursday. Last year, it started to overflow on July 17.

As of Thursday morning, the amount of water available in Mumbai’s lakes stood at 57.86% of the total water carrying capacity of all seven lakes. On this day in 2018, the water content in seven lakes stood at 82.34%.

BMC’s standing committee on July 20 this year revoked the 10% water cut that Mumbai was reeling under since November 15, 2018, as the lakes had total useful water content at 75.67% on November 14, 2018, in comparison to 91.94% on November 14, 2017.

The seven lakes – Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Bhatsa, Vehar, and Tulsi –are divided into two systems, the Vaitarna system that supplies water to the western suburbs and the island city, and Bhatsa system that supplies water to the eastern suburbs.