Running out of water, 91 major Indian water basins face natural deficiency
Although two third of the globe is covered with water, the acute water shortage has been the most pervasive, severe and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of earth. Despite of the monsoons landing here, the water crisis seems to be on no tail.
The water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country has slipped down by one per cent measuring 17 per cent of the total storage capacity of these reservoirs. This percentage was at 18 on its last assessment.
Releasing a list of states having better storage than last year for corresponding period, the centre has hailed Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha, Gujarat and Uttarakhand for their efforts to improve the water level capacities.
It has also assured to boost the states of Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu having lesser storage, with possible required aid and assistance.
“The total storage capacity of these 91 reservoirs is 161.993 BCM which is about 63% of the total storage capacity of 257.812 BCM. 37 Reservoirs out of these 91 have hydropower benefit with installed capacity of more than 60 MW”, the statement read.
The Western regions of Gujarat and Maharashtra in total have 27 reservoirs under CWC monitoring and have total live storage capacity of 31.26 BCM. The total live storage available in these reservoirs is 2.98 BCM which measures 10 per cent of total live storage capacity of these reservoirs.
“The storage during corresponding period of last year was 13 per cent and average storage of last ten years during corresponding period was 17 per cent of live storage capacity of these reservoirs. Following this, the storage during current year is less than the storage of last year and is also less than the average storage of last ten years during the corresponding period”, it further informed.
COURTESY:- NEWS BHARATI
