Monsoon rains in the south peninsula in the last fortnight have bridged the overall gap in water levels in key reservoirs to only 7% below last year’s record on Thursday from a deficiency of 15% a week ago.
Water levels at the 40 reservoirs in southern regions are 26% below last year’s level, while they were 37% below the year-ago period last week.
According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), the water level of the country’s 146 reservoirs stood at 99.84 billion cubic metres (bcm) on Thursday —56% of their combined capacity. A week back, this was at 48%.
A year ago, the water available in these reservoirs was 107.34 bcm, and the average of the last 10 years was 88.66 bcm. “Current water level of reservoirs was 93% of the live storage of the corresponding period of last year and 113% of storage of the average of the last 10 years,” the CWC said.
It said reservoirs in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha, Nagaland, Bihar, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana currently have better storage compared to last year.
West Bengal, 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 67 and reservoirs having storage more than average in the last 10 years are 92,” 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 3% 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 27% more water than last year and 23% above the average of last decade.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), overall monsoon rains have been ‘above normal’ at 5% above the benchmark long period average (LPA) till Thursday.
After being deficient since last month, rainfall in the southern peninsula is 1% above LPA so far. Northwest and central India regions have received 26% and 15% 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’.