The monsoon season is not even halfway through, but the water stock in the seven lakes supplying water to the city has already crossed the 50 per cent mark due to non-stop rainfall in the catchment areas.
Catchment areas of all the seven lakes — Modak Sagar, Tansa, Vihar, Tulsi, Upper Vaitarana, Bhatsa and Middle Vaitarana — have been receiving heavy rainfall, with an addition of around 50,000 to 60,000 million litres daily. Of these, the Tansa and Tulsi lakes are on the verge of overflowing.
“If such rainfall continues throughout the monsoon, we may see all lakes reaching the overflow mark by the end of August. This augurs well for the city’s water supply situation,” said a senior civic official.
According to civic officials, Mumbai needs around 13,00,000 million litres of water stock by the end of the monsoon to last for the entire year. Presently, the stock has reached 6,84,000 million litres mark.
This is in sharp contrast to last year, when the water stock receded to as low as 1,50,000 million litres mark by this time of the year.
In the last 24 hours, the catchments areas of Tansa lake received 150-200 mm of rainfall, whereas Bhatsa and Modak Sagar lakes recorded 150 and 100 mm of rains respectively.
“Last year, the situation was very difficult with rains playing truant right from the beginning of the monsoon. However, we’ve received consistent rainfall this year,” said the official.