July rain has so far given city 50 days of water supply

MUMBAI: Potholes, waterlogging and traffic jams aside, the heavy rain has brought some cheer for Mumbaiites. Close to a week’s rainfall adds 1.8 lakh million litres

MUMBAI: Potholes, waterlogging and traffic jams aside, the heavy rain has brought some cheer for Mumbaiites. Close to a week’s rainfall adds 1.8 lakh million litres of usable water to the catchment areas, which provide water to the city. This means, the city received water that accounts for 50 days of supply from the rainfall between July 1 and July 9.

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The seven lakes supplying water to the city – Modak Sagar, Vehar, Tansa, Tulsi, Bhatsa, Upper Vaitarna and Middle Vaitarna – together have 2.9 lakh million litres of water as of Saturday. The lakes had 3 lakh million litres at the same time last year. Starting October 1, the city requires 14.36 lakh million litres to go without water cuts till July 2017.

Ashok Tawadia, chief hydraulic engineer, BMC, said, “Rainfall in the catchment areas in the last one week has been good. We have met more than 20% of the city’s requirement for the next year.”

The data, which was released on Saturday, brings cheer as the city has been reeling under a water-cut for a year now. Lack of rainfall in 2015 led the BMC to impose a 20% water-cut in August 2015.