NEW DELHI: With monsoon yet to hit most parts of the country, the water storage available in 91 major reservoirs, which are source of drinking, electricity generation and irrigation, of the country was just 15 percent of total storage capacity of these reservoirs as of June 16. Low water storage can badly impact and power and drinking water supply in the country.
In a worrying trend, the storage capacity in reservoirs has been constantly falling and only hope is now on good monsoon. The 23.786 BCM (billion cubic metres) water available is 57 percent of the storage of corresponding period of last year and 80 percent of storage of average of last ten years.
The total storage capacity of these 91 reservoirs is 157.799 BCM which is about 62 percent of the total storage capacity of 253.388 BCM which is estimated to have been created in the country. 37 Reservoirs out of these 91 have hydropower benefit with installed capacity of more than 60 MW.
The monsoon touched Kerala June 8, a delay of eight days and has been progressing slow leading to an overall deficiency of rains by 22 percent over the last fortnight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said Wednesday. On Friday, it progressed and covered Bihar and northeast region.
According to the weather office, from June 1 to 15, the country has received overall 43.6 mm of rainfall as compared to normal level of 55.7 mm - an overall deficiency of 22 percent. The progress of the south-west monsoon has been relatively slow as it is not getting a favourable system to move forward.
The water storage in the Southern region includes states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu was worst affected with water storage available is only 9 percent of total live storage capacity of these reservoirs.
States having better storage than last year for corresponding period are Rajasthan West Bengal, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and rest all the states have water storage worse than last year.
The water storage levels in western region is also falling sharply and it now contains only 11 percent of total storage. Northern region fairs better at 23 percent followed by central at 20 percent and eastern at 17 percent.