South India Faces Severe Water Crisis as Reservoir Levels Plunge to Just 17%

Water levels in southern India are at just 17 per cent of the reservoir capacity. According to a bulletin released by the CWC, 42 reservoirs in the southern region with a total live storage capacity of 53.334 BCM were monitored. The latest report shows that the total live storage available in these reservoirs stands at 8.865 BCM, only 17 per cent of their total capacity.

This is significantly lower compared to the storage levels during the same period last year (29 per cent) and the ten-year average for the corresponding period (23 per cent). The reduced storage levels in the southern region indicate worsening water scarcity and potential challenges for irrigation, drinking water supply, and hydroelectric power generation. In contrast, the eastern region, including states like Assam, Odisha, and West Bengal, has shown a positive improvement in water storage levels compared to last year and the ten-year average.

The bulletin highlighted that in this region, 23 monitored reservoirs with a total live storage capacity of 20.430 BCM currently hold 7.889 BCM of water, 39 per cent of their total capacity. The situation is less optimistic in other regions. The western region, consisting of Gujarat and Maharashtra, reports storage levels of 11.771 BCM, which is 31.7 per cent of the total capacity of 49 monitored reservoirs.

This marks a decline compared to the storage levels of the previous year (38 per cent) and the ten-year average (32.1 per cent). Similarly, the northern and central regions also show declines in water storage levels compared to historical averages. The broader analysis provided in the bulletin categorizes reservoir storage across various river basins as “better than normal,” “close to normal,” “deficient,” or “highly deficient”.

River basins like Brahmaputra, Narmada, and Tapi are marked as having better-than-normal storage levels, whereas basins like Cauvery and east flowing rivers between Mahanadi and Pennar are classified as highly deficient. *(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed. )*