Apurva Bhatt

 

The BMC is preparing for the worst if it doesn't rain soon. The richest civic body is currently preparing to carry out cloud-seeding in the event of poor monsoon, as half of the month of June has gone by, with very little rainfall.

 

Latest BMC’s hydraulic department’s report underlines that the six lakes supplying water to Mumbai have barely enough to last for the next two months.Collectively, the water levels of the six lakes— ModakSagar, Upper Vaitarna, Tansa, Vihar, Tulsi and Bhatsa — stands at 2.41 lakh million litres.

 

Daily, the civic body supplies around 3,300 million litres of water to the island city and suburbs of Mumbai, which is still short of the demand for 4,200 million litres of water.The level of Bhatsa lake, which accounts for 59 per cent of Mumbai’s water supply, currently stands at 113.1 metres which is dipping closer to its lower limit of 104.90 meters. Out of this, 1.1 lakh million litres is portable. During the monsoons, the water levels in Bhatsa lake should touch a maximum limit of 142.07 metres to ensure sufficient water supply to the city for the rest of the year.

 

A senior civic official of the water supply department said, “The lake levels can take care of Mumbai’s demand till July 31. But we do not want to wait till that date, and hence we are preparing for cloud seeding and at the same time water cuts may be enforced to prevent a water crisis in the metropolis.”

 

The official said the corporation was in the process of issuing tenders for cloud-seeding, in anticipation of insufficient rainfall. Cloud-seeding is a process of aerially injecting hydroscopic material into rain clouds to induce rainfall. Cloud seeding is expected to cost the civic body’s exchequer around Rs fifteen to Rs twenty crore.

 

Based on a global warning about the El Nino effect that refers to the warming of surface waters of oceans, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that this year, the rainfall levels will be less compared to the previous years.  “We are hoping that the monsoons will pick up by mid-July and August and we will not have to depend on cloud-seeding,” said the senior official.

 

 While the levels of Tulsi, Vihar and Tansa lakes which account for nearly ten per cent of the city’s water supply are at 134.72, 74.73, and 121.38 meters, respectively, the portable water content in all three lakes is collectively around 35,000 million litres, which is far less than their position recorded in 2013.