Looming water scarcity continues to trouble the southern region. According to the latest bulletin released by the CWC, total live storage available in the reservoirs in the southern region (comprising states: Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu) has dropped to a mere 17% of their total capacity, significantly below historical averages.
The bulletin, which provides an overview of reservoir storage levels across India, mentioned that the 42 reservoirs under CWC monitoring in the southern region have a total live storage capacity of 53.334 billion cubic metres (BCM). However, the current live storage available in these reservoirs stands at only 8.865 BCM, marking a worrisome situation for irrigation, drinking water supply, and hydroelectric power generation in these states.
The report further highlighted the percentage of live storage available in the reservoirs from different regions. Comparatively, the eastern region of India, encompassing states like Assam, Odisha, and West Bengal, has shown a positive trend in water storage levels. With 23 monitored reservoirs holding a total live storage capacity of 20.430 BCM, the region currently has 7.889 BCM of water, representing 39% of its total capacity. Significantly, the present report marks an improvement over the previous year's storage levels.
It added that the western region, including Gujarat and Maharashtra, reports storage levels of 11.771 BCM, equivalent to 31.7% of the total capacity of 49 monitored reservoirs. This is comparatively lower than the storage levels recorded in the previous year and the ten-year average. Similarly, the northern and central regions also face declines in water storage levels compared to historical averages.
Moreover, the bulletin also categorises reservoir storage across various river basins as "better than normal," "close to normal," "deficient," or "highly deficient." Notably, river basins like Brahmaputra, Narmada, and Tapi are marked as having better-than-normal storage levels, whereas basins like Cauvery and east-flowing rivers between Mahanadi and Pennar are classified as highly deficient.
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