At least a fifth of Indian reservoirs have water less than 40 per cent of their capacity even as the storage level declined for the 10 consecutive week, data from the Central Water Commission (CWC) show.
According to CWC’s weekly bulletin on live storage status of 150 major reservoirs, the storage has dropped to 113.514 billion cubic metres (BCM) or 63 per cent of the live storage capacity of 178.784 BCM.
The data show that Cyclone Michaung, which made a landfall near Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, on December 5 and a “low” that brought rains to some parts of central and north-west India have not had much impact on the reservoirs storage.
Down since Oct 5
The level has been declining since the week-ended October 5, with the situation being 17 percentage points lower than last year and 30 percentage points lower than the last 10 years average.
Of the 150 reservoirs, the level in 29 is below 40 per cent, while only 6 are filled to capacity. Thirteen reservoirs are filled 91-99 per cent, 32 between 81 and 90 per cent, 26 between 71 and 80 per cent and 17 are filled 61-70 per cent. Of the rest, 13 are filled 51-60 per cent and 14 between 41 and 50 per cent.
Among the States, 11 have reservoir levels below normal with the situation being precarious at 50 per cent lower than normal. However, the situation has improved from 53 per cent below normal.
Where things have improved
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are the two other States, whose reservoirs level is 39 per cent and 32 per cent lower than normal, respectively. In the case of Tamil Nadu, it has improved from 36 per cent below normal.
The situation has improved in Kerala from nine to eight per cent below normal and Uttar Pradesh from 31 to 30 lower than normal. Assam seems to have benefitted the most from Cyclone Michaung with the water level in its reservoirs improving to 53 per cent from 34 per cent above normal.
Other States where the storage has improved are: Gujarat (from 37 per cent to 38 per cent above normal), Rajasthan (1 per cent to 5 per cent above normal) and Jharkhand (9 per cent to 10 per cent above normal).
In the northern region, the level dropped to 66 per cent (68% last week) of the capacity at 12.895 BCM. In the eastern region, it increased to 71.59 per cent (71 per cent) at 14.625 BCM. In the western region, the storage dropped to 77 per cent (78 per cent) at 28.560 BCM.
In the central region, the level dropped to 73 per cent (73.8 per cent) of the capacity or 35.077 BCM and in the southern region, it was a tad up by 42 per cent at 22.357 BCM.
The storage in reservoirs has dropped this year as the south-west monsoon was 6 per cent deficient and 43 per cent of the 713 districts from where data have been received have experienced deficient or large deficient rainfall. This is due to the impact of El Nino, which leads to drought and low rainfall in Asia.