Although the monsoon has arrived early in Maharashtra this year, a drought situation continues to exist. Multiple reservoirs in Beed and Dharashiv have 0% live water storage left. Vidarbha and Konkan regions have the most water stock. State government officials say the ground situation remains concerning.
Maharashtra has 138 major dams. There are also 260 medium and 2,599 minor ones, for a total of 2,997. As of June 12, the average live water stock across the State stood at 20.21%, 7.6% less than the corresponding day last year, according to data from the Maharashtra Water Resources Department. The average figure looks adequate to tide over the last few days of the summer, but the granular details are where the real picture is hidden.
Live water stock is the quantity available between the full reservoir and the minimum drawable level. It is also called useful storage.
Live stock plummets
The Water Resources Department has divided the entire State into six revenue regions: Nagpur, Amravati, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nashik, Pune, and Konkan. Of these, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has the least average live water stock at 9.11%, followed by Pune at 13.06%, Nashik at 22.78%, Konkan at 29.24%, Amravati at 36.90%, and Nagpur at 36.99%.
Beed falls under the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar revenue region, where five of the eight major dams — Borgaon Anjanpur, Majalgaon, Manjara, Roshanpuri, and Sirasmarg — have zero live water stock. This time last year, two of them (Borgaon Anjanpur and Sirasmarg) had 0% live water stock.
In the Dharashiv belt, five (Killari 2, Limbala, Rajegaon, Sina Kolegaon and Tagarkheda) of the nine major dams have 0% live stock. The other four (Aurad, Gunjarga, Lower Terma, and Madansuri) are helping the locals to survive during the dry season.
NCP seeks relief
The Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) and the Congress have, for almost a month now, been underscoring the drought-related plight of citizens in an attempt to press the Mahayuti government to step up relief measures. Leaders from both parties have visited the affected regions and Mr. Pawar visited the Purandar area in Pune district on Wednesday.
State officials in the Water Resources and Water Supply Departments concur that the situation is concerning but feel that it isn’t as grim as it was in 2016, when “Jaldoot,” or trains carrying potable water had to be arranged. “Water tankers are regularly sent to the affected areas. The situation isn’t encouraging, but not alarming as well,” an official told The Hindu.
Despite the government’s claims of dispatching water tankers, reports have emerged of people being compelled to fetch groundwater from polluted sources, such as in Amravati district’s Mariampur village, where such tankers are yet to arrive.