Good news: Tulsi dam in Mumbai overflows

On the brighter side of the news spectrum, the Tulsi lake, which supplies water to the city of Mumbai is full.

There are seven lakes - Bhatsa, Tansa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, Modak Sagar on Thane-Nashik belt and Tulsi and Vihar in Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SNGP) which provide water to the city of Mumbai. Due to continual downpour in the city, the Tulsi lake had started overflowing on July 27, as per reports.

Even though last year the lake was full by July 9, this year, the lake filled up by the end of the month. The water storage capacity of the Tulsi Lake is about 8,046 million litres. The city of Mumbai needs a total of 14 lakhs 47 thousand 363 million litres of water to sustain for a year. The daily requirement happens to be 4,500 million litres.

Mumbai has known to been facing an urban water crisis for a couple of years now. Therefore, the delay in monsoons in the city had given birth to concerns of water shortage because if the city does not receive adequate rainfall, Mumbai can face water cuts in several areas

Tulshi, Tansa, Modak Sagar and Bhatsa have to be filled in order to supply water to Mumbai throughout the year. For this, a good amount of rainfall is required in the western part of Nashik district and in the northeastern part of Thane district. After Tulsi and Tansa, it is now necessary for Bhatsa and Modak Sagar to fill up. Mumbai's year-round water problem will come to an end if these lakes are further filled with water.

However, every year in the month of May, the BMC instructs the citizens to use water sparingly. Considering this year's rainfall, except for the western part of Kolhapur district on the Konkan and Ghats, there has not been good rainfall anywhere which has been a cause of concern.