BMC seeks State’s permission to use reserve water stock

MUMBAI: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) requires more water to fulfill city’s need. BMC supplies near about 3420 million liters of water per day to Mumbai. Dam water dips down continually in 2019. BMC uses the water of seven lakes for the supply. The decreasing water level of these seven lakes has becomes a big problem to the authority. Comparing to last year the stoked water level of the lakes decreased to 3 per cent in 2019. There is about 3.23 lakh millions of water remaining which is about 22.3 per cent of the total required stock. BMC has written a letter to the state government seeking permission to release reserve water stock to two lakes that can fulfill the requirement of the city. Last time BMC required stock water in 2016 due to poor monsoon in 2015. BMC requires 70,000 million liters water from upper Vaitarna river and 1 lakh million liters water from Bhatsa. As Bhatsa also caters to neighbouring municipal corporations like Thane and Bhiwandi.

The existing stock should suffice till June, but they want to be prepared if it does not rain well in June. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast a near normal monsoon for this year, which is likely to be 96 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of +/-5 per cent.