Mumbai Lakes See Gradual Increase in Water Levels After Recent Rains

Mumbai, 1st July 2024: For the first time in a while, lake levels have begun to show a gradual increase. Although there hasn’t been significant rainfall in the lakes outside Mumbai, there has been a rise of 1,000 million litres in the combined water stock. The city requires around 4,500 million litres of water daily.

Despite recent rainfall in the city over the past two days, the lakes outside city limits have received less than 20 mm of rain on average (measured in the 24 hours up to 6 am on Friday). The total capacity of these lakes is 14.47 lakh million litres, with the water stock at 76,584 million litres as of Thursday, June 27. By Friday, the stock had increased slightly to 77,421 million litres, which is an increase of less than 1,000 million litres—just a quarter of the city’s daily requirement. Meanwhile, the BMC has drawn 72,780 million litres of water from the reserve stock of Upper Vaitarna and Bhatsa.

Seven lakes supply water to the city. Two of these, Tulsi and Vihar, are within city limits, while five are on the border of Thane and Nashik. In the past 24 hours, Tulsi received 98 mm of rainfall, and Vihar received 86 mm. Both lakes received over 400 mm of rainfall in June, but due to their small size, there hasn’t been a significant increase in their water stock.

Comparative water stock on June 28 for the past three years:

– 2024: 77,421 million litres – 5.35%
– 2023: 1,05,109 million litres – 7.26%
– 2022: 1,30,871 million litres – 9.04%