With the southwest monsoon playing truant, concern is building up over water levels in the major reservoirs in parts of the country, particularly in the Western and Southern region, which may impact availability of drinking water.
Already an average 40 per cent deficiency in monsoon has impacted kharif sowing for paddy and cotton and farmers are preparing to fall back upon contingency plans to grow alternative crops and fodder.
Everybody is keeping their fingers crossed for the India Meteorological Department’s forecast of monsoon revival on July 6 to come true.
According to the government, the average storage in the 85 major reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission is better than last year, but the position in some of the States individually needs to be watched.
These states include Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Kerala.
As per official data released by the government, the average storage in the 85 reservoirs on June 26 was 38,022 billion cubic metres which is 25 per cent of their total capacity. This is 102 per cent of the water level in the corresponding period last year and 131 per cent of the average storage in the last 10 years.
States which have better water levels in the reservoirs than in the corresponding period last year are Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu.
For Andhra Pradesh, the situation is comparable to last year.
The IMD has predicted revival of monsoon over many parts of East, adjoining central and north peninsula from July 6 when “above normal” rain is expected.
The West coast will also get normal rain from beginning of July onwards.
However, the monsoon may continue to skip parts of Western region including Gujarat and Maharashtra during the above period.
