Sluggish progress of monsoon in the last one week has widened the gap in water levels in key reservoirs to 18% below last year’s level on Thursday from a deficiency of only 7% a fortnight ago.
The water level in dams has also fallen below the 10-year average level for the first time this season.
In terms of regional variations, water levels at the 40 reservoirs in southern regions, because of deficient monsoon rains so far, are now 34% below last year’s level, as against 30% last week.
According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), the water level of the country’s 146 reservoirs stood at 111.28 billion cubic metres (bcm) on Thursday — 62% of their combined capacity. Water level is at the same level as last week.
A year ago, the water available in these reservoirs was 135.88 bcm, and the average of the last 10 years was 112.92 bcm. “Current water level of reservoirs was 82% of the live storage of the corresponding period of last year and 99% of storage of the average of the last 10 years,” the CWC said.
It said reservoirs in Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Bihar , Uttarakhand, and Chhattisgarh had better storage (in %) than last year for corresponding period.
Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tripura, , Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have less water in their reservoirs compared to last year.
“The numbers of reservoirs having storage more than last year are 42 and reservoirs having storage more than average in the last ten years are 66,” according to a CWC note.
Water levels in major dams in the eastern region, especially in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, have been 14% below last year’s level and 13% less that last 10 year-average level. In these states, a large segment of the crop area is still rainfed.
Because of surplus rainfall in north-western states, 10 reservoirs of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan have 15% more water than last year and 16% above the average of last decade.
Meanwhile, India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its forecast on Thursday, predicted heavy rainfall over east and adjoining central India during the next three days and over northeast India in the next five days. The met department has predicted subdued rainfall activity likely over the rest of the country over the next 4-5 days.
According to the Met department, overall monsoon rains have been ‘below normal’ at 6% below the benchmark — long period average (LPA) till Thursday.
Currently, east and northeast, central India and south peninsula regions have rainfall deficiency of 29%, 4% and 13% respectively of LPA.
Northwest has received 9% more rainfall, respectively, than the benchmark. On August 1, the overall rainfall in the country was 7% above the benchmark. Rainfall between 96-104% of the LPA is considered ‘normal’.