New Delhi: The monitoring data from 23 reservoirs in eastern region including Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam revealed a capacity of 20.430 billion cubic meters (BCM), with current storage just at 24.6 per cent.
This is an improvement over the last year’s 21 per cent but slightly below the normal of 24.8 per cent, according to the weekly reservoir bulletin of Central Water Commission (CWC) released Thursday. The bulleting reported highly deficient conditions in the east-flowing rivers like the Mahanadi, Krishna and Cauvery basins. There is a total live storage of 39.765 BCM, which constitutes just 22 per cent of the total live storage capacity of the 150 main reservoirs in the country, the bulletin said.
Last week, the total capacity was 23 per cent of the storage capacity of these reservoirs. As the temperature rose, a week-on-week decline has been seen in the reservoir level for the past three months. The southern region, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, has 42 reservoirs with a total capacity of 53.334 BCM. The current storage is alarmingly low at 7.114 BCM (13 per cent), significantly down from last year’s 23 per cent and the ten-year average of 19 per cent. The total live storage capacity of the monitored reservoirs is 178.784 BCM, approximately 69.35 per cent of the nation’s overall live storage capacity of 257.812 BCM. This week’s live storage stands at 79 per cent of the storage available during the corresponding period last year (50.549 BCM) and 93 per cent of the ten year average (42.727 BCM).
In the northern region, including Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan, the 10 reservoirs have a combined live storage capacity of 19.663 BCM. The current storage is 5.888 BCM (30 per cent of capacity), a drop from last year’s 39 per cent and the ten-year average of 31 per cent. The western region, encompassing Gujarat and Maharashtra, has 49 reservoirs with a total capacity of 37.130 BCM. They are currently at 8.359 BCM (23 per cent), down from 25 per cent last year but above the 21 per cent ten-year average. In the central region, covering Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, 26 reservoirs have a capacity of 48.227 BCM, with current storage at 13.369 BCM (27.7 per cent). This is less than last year’s 35 per cent and just below the normal of 27.9 per cent.