Good News! No water cut for now; Mumbai reports 97 percent water storage in seven dams

As Mumbai witnessed good rainfall in the last week, it led to an increase in the water storage in all the seven dams that supply water to Mumbai and about 97 percent of the water storage has accumulated. Due to the decrease in the deficit in water storage, the crisis of year-long water shortage has been overcome for now. Mumbai has so far received 85 percent of the annual average rainfall.

The seven dams that supply water to Mumbai namely Upper Vaitarna, Modaksagar, Tansa, Middle Vaitrana Reservoir, Bhatsa, Vihar and Tulsi have to have a useful water storage of 14 lakh 47 thousand 363 million liters to supply water to Mumbai metropolis. Therefore, it is possible for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to provide smooth water supply throughout the year. In all the seven dams, currently 14 lakh million liters i.e. 96.79 percent of the total storage capacity have been accumulated. Now there is only a three to four percent deficit in water storage.

This year, due to unsatisfactory rainfall in the dam area that initially supplies water to Mumbai, the water storage had decreased during the monsoon. Keeping this situation in mind, the civic body had reduced the water supply of Mumbai by 10 percent from July 1, 2023 until the rainfall improved. The 10 percent water cut in Mumbai was canceled in August due to satisfactory rainfall in July. However in  the same month, the rains stopped and the water level had settled at 90 percent. There was already a 10 percent deficit in the water storage and the water level started receding from the first week of September. However, due to last week’s rainfall, there has been a huge increase in the water level of the dam.

The water engineer department is planning in such a way that the water in all the seven dams will be sufficient till the end of July next year. Therefore, there was a possibility that this year water reduction has to be done again for the year. But for now, this concern has been resolved. The largest Bhatsa lake, which supplies the city with the highest daily supply of 1,850 million liters of water, is also 98 percent full this year. This lake has a storage capacity of 7 lakh 17 thousand million liters of water.