Mumbai civic body to impose water cut in city from July 1

With the level of lakes supplying water to Mumbai going down due to inadequate rainfall in their catchment areas, the city civic body has decided to impose a 10 per cent water cut here starting from Saturday, officials said.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation commissioner and administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal also appealed to citizens to save water and use it judiciously.

The southwest monsoon covered Mumbai on Sunday after a delay of two weeks.

Talking to PTI, Chahal said on Wednesday that the BMC has decided to implement 10 water cut in Mumbai from July 1 as the stock in lakes supplying water to the city is about seven per cent.

Mumbai receives 3,800 millions of litres per day of water from seven reservoirs namely Bhatsa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, Tansa, Modak Sagar, Vihar and Tulsi, located in Mumbai, Thane and Nashik districts.

According to a BMC report, the seven lakes had 7.26 per cent stock at 6 am on Wednesday.

On the same day in 2022 and 2021, the lakes had 9.04 per cent and 16.44 per cent water stock respectively, as per the report.

In a release issued on Wednesday evening, the civic body said the 10 per cent water cut will be applicable to the areas under the municipal corporations of neighbouring

Thane and Bhiwandi-Nizampur, along with some other villages to which the BMC supplies water.

Even after the onset of monsoon this year, there has been very little rainfall in the areas of dams that supply water to Mumbai. Three per cent less rainfall has been recorded in the month of June as compared to the previous year, it said.

If the same situation continues in the absence of heavy rains (in the catchment areas), Mumbai's water supply may be adversely affected, the BMC said, adding that in view of this, 10 per cent water cut will remain applicable till the heavy rainfall improves the useful water stock in the reservoirs supplying water to Mumbai from July 1.

To supply water to the entire Mumbai metropolitan city, the total useful water stock required is 14,47,363 million litres. But presently, all seven reservoirs have only 99,164 million litres which is 6.85 per cent useful water stock, the corporation said.