Despite showers, vital lakes fall short

Despite heavy rainfall of an average of 100 mm throughout the city on Saturday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has stated that the amount of rainfall received in the catchment area of the three important lakes that supply water to Mumbai has been dissatisfactory. The three lakes, Upper Vaitarna, Bhatsa and Middle Vaitarna, have received rainfall by less than 200 mm in comparison to the same time last year.

The three lakes have received a total of 3,631 mm of rainfall this monsoon, as opposed to 4,037 mm received this time last year.

Deputy municipal commissioner, (general administration), Sudhir Naik said, “As of September 30, we need 14 lakh million litres of water in all the lakes of Mumbai. While right now we are in a slightly better position than last year, the three important lakes do not have sufficient water.”

The total useful content in all the seven lakes is presently 9,33,696 million litres of water, as opposed to 7,99,383 million litres. Meanwhile, Upper Vaitarna has 1,03,523 ML of useful water content, Bhatsa has 4,72,091 ML and Middle Vaitarna has 1,24,787 ML of useful water content, which is considerably better than last year, but is still not up to the mark, Mr Naik said.

Meanwhile, the city and its suburbs saw yet another spell of heavy rainfall. The Colaba station recorded a total of 95.4 mm of rainfall and the Santacruz station recorded a total of 114.5 mm of rainfall. Nine spots experienced mild water logging, of which five are located in the city and four in the western suburbs. Mr Naik said no traffic diversions took place on Saturday.

In addition, 16 places in Mumbai experienced over 100 mm of rainfall between Friday morning and Saturday morning.