Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: With the mercury moving northward day by day and most parts of Maharashtra facing a severe water crisis, the water levels in reservoirs and dams have dropped to 37.52 per cent. Last year, during this period, the water availability was 45.52 per cent.
With 66 per cent of the revenue circles in the state facing a drought, the administration has deployed 1,417 tankers in hundreds of villages and hamlets as against 61 tankers at the same time last year.
Marathwada region has the highest number of tankers at 720. In water-starved North Maharashtra, there were 345 tankers supplying potable water, 207 of these to Nashik district, which was the worst hit.
Owing to deficient rainfall and water shortage, the state government on October 31 last year had declared drought in 40 of the state’s 356 tehsils. This included 287 revenue circles that received rainfall below the 75 per cent threshold. Later, the government added 1,532 of 2,292 revenue circles as drought-hit owing to the severe water shortage in rural areas.
Shahapur tehsil, which provides water to Mumbai through dams such as Bhatsa, Vaitarna and Tansa, is facing an acute water crisis, with villages getting water only once in two to three days. Around 25 villages and 118 hamlets in Shahapur were getting water through 23 tankers but many villages were still parched.
The water crunch in villages from Thane and Palghar district had resulted in the pro-tribal outfits organising a march with villagers to 39 village panchayats. As per a government decision in 2020, all the villages in the vicinity of dams were to get tap water, and schemes were designed accordingly.
Maharashtra has around 2,994 small, medium and major dams across the state with a total live storage capacity of 40,485 mcum (million cubic metres). According to the daily water availability report released by the water resources department, as of April 1, live storage has reduced to 15,189.42 mcum, which is 37.52 per cent of capacity.
Water availability in Marathwada region, which includes Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Jalana, Beed, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded, Latur and Dharashiv, is the lowest at 19.36 per cent compared to 45.44 per cent this time last year. Even the rain-blessed Konkan, which has the highest water availability, has only 50.50 per cent water.
