Monsoon leaves state with drought-like situation

Mumbai: While the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on September 30 officially announced the end of the monsoon season, the government, which was hoping more rains would save the state from the drought-like situation, is left worried now. The water storage in dams across the state is only 74.17% of the consolidated storage capacity which means the state is facing a water deficit of around 26% and staring at a drought-like situation. Marathwada, the drought-prone region of the state, has the lowest water availability with only 38.95% water storage in dams.

The four-month monsoon season ended on September 30 on Saturday as announced by the IMD. The water availability data shared by the water resources department on Sunday, October 1 shows that against its capacity of 40485.05 million cubic meters of water storage, the dams in Maharashtra have only 30028.43 million cubic meters or 74.17% of total capacity. Out of six revenue divisions only Nagpur (Eastern Vidarbha) and Kokan (Coastal Maharashtra) have more than 90% of water in dams. All other four divisions Amaravati (Western Vidarbha), Aurangabad (Marathwada), Nashik (Northern Maharashtra) and Pune (Western Maharashtra) have around 80% and less water in the dams.

Due to the insufficient rainfall this year, after four good years of monsoon, Maharashtra will have to plan the water usage till the arrival of the next monsoon with a 25.83% deficit in water availability. As a result of less rainfall and low storage in dams, some areas are likely to face water scarcity in the coming days.

Already over 2,300 villages and hamlets have been supplied potable water through tankers. This number is expected to increase in the coming months. The highest number of 203 tankers are running for water supply in the Pune division followed by 194 tankers in the Nashik division. Last year during the same period the number of tankers for water supply was zero.

As per IMD report Ahmednagar has received 10% less rainfall, Dhule 9%, Kolhapur 16%, Sangli 44%, Satara 37%, Solapur 30%, Aurangabad 11%, Beed 21%, Jalana 33%, Osmanabad 24% and Parbhani has received 17% less rainfall than average. The crops have been affected in many districts due to the long dry spell and the agriculture department has already started the process to assess the situation. After the due process farmers will get the partial payment of their crop loss.

The deficit in water availability in dams is also affecting the hydro power generation of the state. Koyana dam, which has the highest capacity of 1960 MW of hydro power generation has 88% water availability. To keep the water reserve for the next eight months, hydro power generation has been controlled due to less availability of water. During a good monsoon state government owned generation company uses water in Koyana to generate hydro power and provides cheap power compared to thermal power projects.