Heavy showers replenish Mumbai’s water stock to 95% of capacity; supply to last over a year
Data from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation shows that the overall water stock rose by nearly five per cent points in the past week, with three lakes recording 100% stock.
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The BMC's data shows that the overall water stock has risen by nearly five per cent points over the past week after the showers picked up pace on August 16. (Express Photo)As moderate to heavy rainfall continued over the satellite Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) area, the average water stock in all seven lakes that supply water to the city reached the 94.95 per cent mark on Friday morning, with three of the lakes recording 100 per cent water stock.
At present, all seven lakes have a combined water stock of 1.37 lakh million litres against their total capacity of 1.41 lakh million litres.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) supplies water amounting to 3,850 million litres a day (MLD) against an overall demand of 4,200 MLD. Therefore, the current stock is set to last for 375 days.
“This year, the entire state of Maharashtra recorded good rainfall, especially over the last week. As a result of which the overall stock has risen by a significant margin. We are hoping that since the stock has reached adequate capacity, there will be no need for water cuts for the next one year, barring for maintenance purposes,” a civic official said.
The BMC’s data also shows that the overall water stock has risen by nearly five per cent points over the past week after the showers picked up pace on August 16. Before that, the stock stood at 89.5 per cent.
Being an island city, Mumbai draws its potable water from Tulsi, Vihar, Bhatsa, Tansa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, and Modak Sagar lakes. While Tulsi and Vihar lakes are located within the city, the others are in the neighbouring districts of Thane, Palghar, and Nashik. The catchment area of these lakes gets filled during the monsoon, and the water is transported through tunnels to the BMC’s filtration plant.
According to the civic body’s data, the water stock in Modak Sagar, Vehar and Tulsi lakes is at 100 per cent capacity, while the overall stock in Tansa Lake stood at 98.77 per cent, followed by 94.76 per cent at Middle Vaitarna, 94.48 per cent at Upper Vaitarna, and 93.33 per cent at Bhatsa Lake.
Furthermore, the data also shows that in the last 24 hours, Tulsi Lake recorded 58 mm of rainfall, followed by 55 mm at Middle Vaitarna, 35 mm at Modak Sagar, 29 mm at Upper Vaitarna, 22 mm at Tansa, 15 mm at Bhatsa, and 9 mm at Vihar Lake. Civic officials said they are expecting all seven lakes to reach full capacity by early September.
The BMC’s data shows that on August 22 last year, the water stock in all seven lakes stood at 94.69 per cent while in 2023, it stood at 83.97 per cent on the same date.
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