Important reservoirs in three of five regions in the country now have less water in storage compared to what they had on an average during the last ten years at this time of the year.
The latest bulletin of the Central Water Commission based on the data available on April 28, reveals that only Tripura, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have reservoir storage levels that are better than 'normal', a term that denotes the average level of the last 10 years. The Commission's bulletin includes data on the storage status of 91 important reservoirs in the country that the Commission monitors.
The Western region, which includes Gujarat and Maharashtra, and the Southern region, which includes Andhra Pradesh Telangana, two combined projects in both these States, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, seem particularly hard-hit.
Reservoirs in the Western region have a live storage of 18 per cent compared to the ten-year average of 35 per cent. The figures are 13 and 23 per cent respectively for the Southern region and 21 and 31 per cent respectively for the Northern region, which includes Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. The Central region, which includes Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and Eastern region, which includes Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Tripura have levels that are normal or better than normal.
All the regions have less water in storage than what they had at the corresponding point in time last year.
Reservoirs in the Telengana-Andhra region are the worst off with a deficit of 82 per cent, followed by Uttarakhand, with 75 per cent, and Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, with 61 per cent each.
Most reservoirs in Maharashtra have witnessed a drop of 50 per cent or more in storage levels when compared to the ten year average.
In the other hard-hit regions - Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and as well as two combined projects in Andhra and Telengana - all reservoirs have recorded a decline in storage of more than 50 percent, except one.
Other States too that do not have as dismal a storage position also have reservoirs that have witnessed a more than 50 decline compared to the 'normal' numbers.
And in contrast, some of the deficit States have seen an improvement in the situation over the past week. Marginal improvements were seen in the position of Punjab, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, for instance.
The total live storage capacity of all 91 reservoirs is 21 per cent, which is 64 percent of the storage this time last year and 77 percent of the decadal average.
