India faces water crisis with reservoirs holding only 38% water before summer
New Delhi:
Data show that before the arrival of summer, the active storage capacity of India’s 150 major reservoirs accounted for only 38% of the total storage capacity, which is lower than the average level for the same period in the past decade.
Cities like Bengaluru are already facing a shortfall of about 500 million liters of water per day (MLD), against a demand of 2,600 MLD.
According to the Central Water Commission’s weekly bulletin, storage levels in states such as Karnataka have declined compared to the same period last year.
Bengaluru has 14,000 borewells, of which 6,900 are dry. Water bodies are either encroached upon or have dried up. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah told reporters that the city requires 2,600 MLD of water, of which 1,470 MLD will come from Cauvery river and 650 MLD from boreholes.
Several other states including Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Rajasthan, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh States, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (two combined projects in two states) and Tamil Nadu also reported lower storage levels compared to last year.
According to official data, the total active storage capacity of these 150 reservoirs is 178.784 BCM, accounting for approximately 69.35% of the country’s total active storage capacity of 257.812 billion cubic meters.
According to Thursday’s reservoir capacity bulletin, the active storage capacity of these reservoirs is 67.591 BCM, accounting for 38% of the total active storage capacity.
However, at this time last year, available live storage was 80.557 BCM, and the average over the past ten years was 72.396 BCM.
Therefore, the current active reservoir volume of these 150 reservoirs is equivalent to 84% of the same period last year and 93% of the average reservoir volume over the past ten years.
The announcement stated that the overall inventory situation nationwide is lower than the same period last year and lower than the average inventory level for the same period in the past ten years.
The southern region, which includes the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (two combined projects for the two states), Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, monitors 42 reservoirs with a total live storage capacity of 53.334 BCM.
As of the reservoir capacity bulletin on March 21, 2024, the total available live storage capacity of these reservoirs is 12.287 BCM, accounting for 23% of the total live storage capacity.
This marks a decrease compared to storage levels at the same time last year (39%) and the average storage level over the past decade (32%).
As a result, current storage levels in the South are lower than last year and lower than the average storage level over the past decade.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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