Mumbai Rains: City gets the best June rainfall in the last 5 years

The recent heavy rain has caused the Middle Vaitarna to fill fast. FileâÂÂÂu00c2u0080ÂÂÂu00c2u0088Pic

While Mumbai has been severely inconvenienced by the rain this week, the good news is that water levels in lakes around the city have seen a significant rise. According to official data, a single day's rainfall has added 40,000 million litres of water to the lakes, increasing the total stock of available water to 4.50 lakh million litres today. This is the highest in five years.

Sources said, the Middle Vaitarna lake has contributed 450 million litres daily since July 2012.

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As a result, the total capacity of the water that can be stored in the seven lakes has been increased to 14.47 lakh million litres. After a water distribution enhancement exercise was conducted last October, the city now supplies 3,800 million litres daily (MLD). Before 2012, the civic body had a water stock of about 70,000 million litres.

While the total available water stock increased to 3.96 lakh million litres in 2013 in June, the same went down drastically in 2014, when a serious water crisis was recorded. The available stock in 2014 stood at a meagre 1.18 lakh million litres in June.

Adequate rain in 2015, aided by an early monsoon, helped increase the water stock to 3.40 lakh million litres in June, but the severe water crisis that followed soon after -- from August 2015 -- dried up the stocks in a major way. The water crisis continued till July 2016, when the water stock was recorded at 1.09 lakh million litres.

While the stock were barely enough, the 4.5 lakh million litres (31.09 per cent of the total storage capacity) stock following 2016 monsoon helped the civic body sustain the water demand till this June.

Speaking to mid-day, Ashok Tawadia, chief engineer of Hydraulic Engineering department, said, "It's too early to comment on the water stock as three months of monsoon are remaining. We devise our water management strategy by the end of September, when water level figures are more accurate. But yes, there has been a major rise in water stock this week, which is a great news for the city."