As heavy rain lashes Mumbai, water stock in 7 lakes touch 18.73 %

While the overall water stock in the lakes continue to be lower than last two years, the increase in the total quantum of water has been rapid since past one week.

On June 30, the overall water stock in the lakes stood at 79,000 Million Litres (MiL) which was just 5 per cent of the total stock, while the current quantum of water stand at 2.71 lakh MiL or 18.73 per cent.

Last year, on July 8, the water stock in all the seven lakes stood at 21.57 per cent, while in 2022 the stock stood at 25.94 per cent.

Civic officials said that every 1 per cent of water stock accounts to every three days of water usage in Mumbai.

“The difference between the lake’s water stock of this year and that of past two years is less than 10%, therefore the gap could be filled within next few days if good rainfall continue. The point is this year even though monsoon arrived early, the intensity of rainfall picked up late, as a result the deficit was created,” said a civic official.

Mumbai draws its water from seven different lakes —Tulsi, Vihar, Bhatsa, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Upper Vaitarna and Middle Vaitarna.

The catchment areas of these lakes get filled during monsoon following which the water is supplied through pipelines.

The catchment areas of all the lakes besides Tulsi and Vihar are located in Palghar, Thane and Nashik districts.

However, considering Mumbai received good quantum of rain, the catchment areas of Tulsi and Vihar recorded the highest amount of rainfall.

According to BMC’s chart, the catchment areas of Vihar lake recorded 364 mm of rains taking it’s live storage up to 31.74 per cent, while the Tulsi lake recorded 254 mm of rain taking the live storage up to 45.51 per cent.

Besides this, the catchment areas of Tansa lake recorded 76 mm of rain and has a present stock of 40.69 per cent, while Modak Sagar with live storage of 35.85 per cent recorded 35 mm of rain, Middle Vaitarna which has a stock of 19.52 per cent recorded 23 mm of rain, the Bharsa Lake which has a stock of 16.13 per cent recorded recorded 13 mm of rain, while upper Vaitarna which doesn’t have any useful content left recorded 7 mm of rainfall.

Besides this, the Powai Lake which supplies non-potable water to Mumbai for industrial usage also overflowed on Monday morning. The lake has a water holding capacity of 545 crore liters and the 6.61 km long catchment area gets filled during the monsoon every year.

Meanwhile civic officials have said that the ongoing 10 per cent water cut will continue till the overall stock of lakes increases further.

According to the India Meteorology Department’s (IMD) Santacruz observatory, Mumbai recorded 268 mm of rains till 8.30 am on Monday, making it the highest single day rainfall figures since 2019 and second highest since 2014.