Rains make city feel ‘dam’ good

With heavy rains pouring down on the city and the catchments of the dams, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has all but revoked its water cut. Hydraulic engineer DP Kajbaje said the BMC had restored full water supply to the city. Kajbaje said, “We have restored full water supply, yesterday, we released 3250 MLD (million litres per day) to the city.”

The Tansa, Bhatsa and Vaitarna dams supplying water to the city received an average of 6cm rainfall on Saturday morning, according to BMC figures. The levels of all lakes rose marginally with rainwater from the grey skies, with the exception of the Modak Sagar reservoir, whose water level rose by 1.6metres. But the lakes haven’t yet overflowed, a critical sign meaning that the lakes are filled with enough water to last the city in the dry months after the monsoon. The water level of the lakes is between two to 10metres from the overflow mark.

Additional municipal commissioner Manu Kumar Srivastava, who oversees the water supply department, said that he would announce the revocation of the water cut only if the rains continued strongly for some more days. “We will take (a call) about this shortly. It is only recently that the rainfall (has taken place) in the catchment areas (of dams)” he told DNA.

However, on Friday, the Bhatsa river, swollen with rainwater, flowed so strongly that the BMC water department had to open some floodgates at the Pise weir (a small dam) to drain away the excess water. This is an encouraging sign, Kajbaje said. The weather bureau has forecast ‘intermittent rainshowers with a few heavy to very heavy falls in parts of the city and the suburbs’.  Some areas in the city will still receive poor water supply, because of leakages and theft or because of political pressure to give some localities more water than their due.