The four-month monsoon season in India is starting this year with rather comfortable water level in India’s 81-odd major reservoirs, a big departure from the last year when reservoir levels dropped to record lows.
As per the latest data from the central water commission, storage level in all the major reservoirs across the country is around 118% of last year’s level at 22.62 billion cubic meter (BCM) and 103% of average of last 10 years. Storage in terms of percentage of live capacity at full reservoir level (FRL) is around 15%, while in 2009 during the same time this was around 13%. Live capacity at FRL is the percentage of water stored compared to the full capacity of the reservoir.
It dipped to almost 9% as monsoon lost pace after making an early entry into the mainland, raising fears that irrigation through canal systems and also water and power supply to some big cities could be disrupted.
The worrying factor, however, is that water level in 22 out of the 36 reservoirs which have significant hydropower generation potential is below normal, which makes timely progress of monsoon imperative to prevent long power cuts.
Water in India’s main 81 major reservoirs not only provide irrigation to vast tracts of farmlands, but are also the main source of power and electricity.
In North, of the six reservoirs which are monitored by the CWC, overall storage is less by 35% in Himachal Pradesh, by 29% in Punjab and 57% in Rajasthan.
In Central India too, of the 11 major reservoirs, water level is satisfactory only in reservoirs situated in MP, while storage is less than normal in all the reservoirs situated in UP, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand.
?In central and northern India, only MP received good winter rains, hence it has good water in the reservoirs. Moreover, the heat wave has been intense over northern and central India during March-May,? a senior agriculture ministry official said.