Mumbai: Modak Sagar, one of the seven lakes that supply drinking water to the city, overflowed on Thursday night. The heavy rainfall in the catchment area has also increased the overall lake level up to 68% of its total capacity. Hence, the current stock in lakes could be sufficient for the next seven months. However, the city is expecting a dry spell in August, so the withdrawal of a 10% water cut will be decided next month after review of lakes, said the civic officials.
Modak Sagar lake located in Thane district started overflowing at 10.52 pm on Thursday. The lake has the capacity to supply 385 crore litres of water to the city daily. This is the fourth lake to overflow, after Tulsi, Vihar and Tansa. Currently, the seven lakes have 9.85 lakh million litres (ML) of water stock, while it stood at 12.76 lakh ML in 2022 and 70% in 2021. The remaining three lakes -Bhatsa has 59%, Upper Vaitarna (42.78%) and Middle Vaitarna (79.70%) water stock to their total capacity.
Meanwhile, former corporators and citizens are demanding to withdraw the 10% water cut that has been imposed from July 1. "The seven lakes should have 14.47 lakh ML water stock on October 1, which will be sufficient for the whole year. A dry spell is expected next month, so we don't want to withdraw the water cut in haste. A review will be taken in the first week of August," said a civic official.
Current stock (million litres) in lakes
Upper Vaitarna - 97,141
Modak Sagar - 1,28,925
Tansa - 1,44,475
Middle Vaitarna - 1,54,249
Bhatsa - 4,24,596
Vihar - 27,698
Tulsi - 8,046
