The slow pace of monsoon is worrying as the catchment area of Morbe Dam that supplies water to Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) area and a few CIDCO administered areas have received less than 10 percent of rainfall of what it had received last year. This is likely to delay the overflowing of the dam until there are good spells of rainfall.
As per the data provided by officials at Morbe dam, the catchment area of the dam has received a total of 28 mm of rainfall till June 14 which last year, it had already received 440 mm of rainfall in the same period.
The Morbe dam is located in Khalapur Taluka in the Raigad district and the catchment area requires at least 3,250 mm of rainfall to overflow. In order to supply uninterrupted water supply round the year, more than 3000 mm of rainfall is required. Last year, there was around 3700 mm of rainfall, and the dam had overflowed. The civic body did not take any water cuts as it has sufficient water level to meet the demand till the third week of August.
However, the slow pace and scanty rainfall may impact the water supply next year. At present, the dam level is 71.15 meters while last year, it was 72.85 meters. The maximum water level of the dam is 88 meters and the total storage capacity of the Morbe Dam is 190.890 million cubic meters (MCM). “If we compare last year’s rainfall, there is a shortfall of 412 mm rainfall,” said Vasant Padghan, an Engineer at Morbe Dam.
Last year, the catchment area of the dam had received around 3,700 mm of rainfall and it had overflown on September 28.
NMMC requires around 463 million litres (ML) of water per day and around 393 ML it gets from the Morbe dam and the remaining is supplied by Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC).
Jyoti Palekar, Sustainability Consultant advocates for checking the method of consumption of water at home including taking a few steps to recharge the groundwater. “We can reuse water after cleaning clothes in washing machines for cleaning vehicles, and gardening,” said Palekar, adding that too much dependence on one water resource will not solve the problem. “From setting up rainwater harvesting to recycling water are other measures to tide over the rising demand,” added Palekar.
