After a good rainfall in the catchment area, one of the seven lakes supplying water to Mumbai — Tulsi — started overflowing on Tuesday morning. This is the second lake to overflow after ModakSagar. Mumbai receives its supply of water from seven lakes situated on the outskirts of Mumbai.

     

      After heavy rains in June, rainfall waned and the catchment area received meagre rainfall in July and August. This resulted in a total water stock of only 9 lakh million litres in total as against 14 lakh million litres last year. The lack of rainfall compelled BMC to impose 20 per cent water cut across the city for domestic users and 50 per cent for bulk consumers.

 

    When Mumbai Eye contacted an official from the hydraulic department of BMC, he said, “The 20 per cent water cut will stay till October. If all seven lakes have a totally capacity of 14 lakh million litres than we can decide to drop the idea of the water cut.” But monsoon has picked up since the onset of Ganesh Utsav, with catchment areas receiving better rainfall. On September 20, ModakSagar attained its full capacity and started overflowing. Moreover, the Middle Vaitarna is almost full. Both the lakes contribute 21 per cent of the city’s total water supply.  On Tuesday morning at around 5.30 am, Tulsi lake also started overflowing. Thus, the city has a total water stock of 11.29 lakh litres as of now.