Water level in dams below 10-yr average
New Delhi: Slow-paced monsoon in the past week has widened the gap in water levels at 146 key reservoirs across the country. During the week ended Wednesday, the water level in dams fell 1% below the 10-year average, for the first time this season, as it dropped 18% from a year ago. During the period, India received 260 mm of rainfall, 58% below normal.
Higher water levels will benefit the farm sector as farmers are heavily reliant on reservoir water for irrigation. According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), the water level at 146 reservoirs as of Thursday was at 111.285 billion cubic metres (bcm), 62% of their total storage capacity. The water level remained the same as last week.
A year ago, the water available in these reservoirs was 135.88 bcm, and the average of the past 10 years was 112.92 bcm. “The live storage available in 146 reservoirs as of Thursday is 82 % of the live storage of corresponding period of last year and 99% of storage of average of last ten years," the CWC said. While reservoirs in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Nagaland and Chhattisgarh had better storage than last year, Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala had lower water levels.
As far as regional variations are concerned, water levels at 40 reservoirs in southern India were 34% lower than last year and 30% below last week’s levels. Water levels in 21 major dams in eastern India were 14% less than the year-ago period and 13% lower than the last 10-year average level. This is due to 20% and 13% deficient monsoon so far in east India and south peninsula, respectively.
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