Monsoon rains in the last fortnight have reduced the overall gap in water levels in key reservoirs to just 6% below last year’s record level on Thursday from a deficiency of 15% a fortnight ago. However, water levels at the 40 reservoirs in southern regions are now 30% below last year’s level, as against 26% last week. According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), the water level of the country’s 146 reservoirs stood at 109.98 billion cubic metres (bcm) on Thursday — 62% of their combined capacity. A week ago, this was at 56%. A year ago, the water available in these reservoirs was 117.12 bcm, and the average of the last 10 years was 102 bcm. “Current water level of reservoirs was 94% of the live storage of the corresponding period of last year and 108% of storage of the average of the last 10 years,” the CWC said.
It said reservoirs in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha, Nagaland, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana had better storage (in %) than last year for corresponding period. West Bengal, Tripura, Bihar, 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 66 and reservoirs having storage more than average in the last 10 years are 80,” according to a CWC note.
Water levels in major dams in the eastern region, especially in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, have been up 11% above last year’s level, however, only 4% 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 20% more water than last year and 15% above the average of last decade.
Meanwhile, India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its forecast on Thursday, predicted rainfall over east Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh during next 4-5 days. However the Met department has stated subdued rainfall activity in the next one week over the rest of the country. According to the Met department, overall monsoon rains have been at par with the ‘normal’ benchmark — long period average (LPA) till Thursday.
Currently, east and northeast and south peninsula regions have rainfall deficiency of 18% and 7% respectively of LPA. Northwest and central India regions have received 17% and 5% 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’.