Water level in Mumbai's lakes dip as civic body blames delay in monsoons, says city has supply till end July

Mumbai: With the rains playing truant and water level in the lakes dipping further, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has started supplying water to citizens from the reserve stock, officials said on Thursday. [caption id=“attachment_6878251” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The monsoon in Mumbai is behind schedule by more than two weeks, which is the longest such delay in the last ten years. PTI[/caption] “The civic administration has made arrangements for the supply of water until the end of July. We are now using the reserve stock to provide water to citizens,” the BMC said in a statement on Thursday. In the statement, the civic body made an appeal to the citizens to use water sparingly. Mumbai’s water supply comes from seven reservoirs: Modak Sagar, Tansa lake, Vihar lake, Tulsi lake, Upper Vaitarna, Bhatsa, and Middle Vaitarna. The BMC supplies 3,750 million litres of water every day to the residents of the island city and suburbs, which still falls short of the actual demand for 4,200 million litres. A senior civic official said that due to the absence of rain, only five percent water is left in the reservoirs supplying water to Mumbai. “This has prompted the civic administration to use the reserve stock of water for supply. But there is no need to panic as we have sufficient stock of water, which will last till the end of July,” he said. The official also said that a section of media has created a picture that the civic body has completely run out of water. “We still have five percent water left in the lakes and we strongly believe that there will be some good spells of rain in the coming days,” the official said, adding that only if there is no rain in the next few weeks, then there would be problems. When contacted, Ashok Tewadiya, chief engineer of the BMC’s Hydraulic Engineering Department told PTI that the lakes currently have ample water that till the end of July. “Any decision regarding water cuts will be taken by the senior officers of the BMC after deliberations with the officials of the India Meteorological Department (IMD),” Tewadiya said.