Summary:
“But now we may have to use water from reserve stocks,” said an official.“The seven catchment area lakes received good rains in June and July. MUMBAI: Though the combined stock of the seven lakes which supply potable water to Mumbai is over a lakh million litres less than the same time last year, there will be no water cuts for now, said the BMC on Friday.A BMC official said that when the lakes by monsoonend (September 30) get normal water stock (14.47 lakh million liters), the city is provided adequate water for the rest of year from “live storage”. An official from the hydraulic department said that Upper Vaitarna is a BMC catchment, but Bhatsa’s water is shared by neighboring municipal corporations as well (Thane and Bhiwandi civic bodies).“Therefore, for using reserve water stock from the Bhatsa system, the state government’s nod is required.The last time we had used reserve stocks was in 2015, when not enough rainfall was received and the catchments did not have sufficient water,” said an official. But rainfall in August and September was not as expected.” Catchment area lakes have three levels: live storage, reserve stock and dead stock.Another official said that in June and July, on many days over 3,800 million litres of water was brought into the city—the normal level of supply.“But in the current situation, we will stick to only 3,800 million litres,” he said.The Bhatsa system has 2.25 lakh million litres of reserve stock while for the Upper Vaitarna system, this figure is 92,500 million litres..