Monsoon starts slow,reserve water level low but hope floats

“Except for the reservoirs in the southern region,reservoirs in other parts of the country are running short of their last 10 years’ average. However,we are much better than last year,when the country had witnessed a large-scale drought,” CWC Chairman A K Bajaj told The Indian Express.

With the Met Department predicting good rains in the remaining three months of the monsoon season,there is hope that the water resources that had come under severe stress due to large-scale drought last year would be replenished sufficiently to cater to the country’s irrigation and power needs.

Water experts suggest that the north-west of the country,which suffered maximum deficient rainfall last year and has got only marginal rains till now,would require more than just normal rainfall in the coming weeks.

As per data received from the states,paddy,which needs standing water,had already been sown in 46.46 lakh hectares of land by July 2,while oilseeds had been sown in 28.86 lakh hectares. Sugarcane,jute and cotton have also been sown in areas greater than those at the same date last year. It all now depends on how the monsoon behaves in the coming few weeks.

“The Met Department has predicted a revival of the monsoon. We hope that these predictions would hold good and our reservoir storage would be replenished well,” Bajaj said.

He added that the important thing was not just the quantity of rainfall but also its spatial distribution. It has to rain properly in the catchment areas for the reservoirs to gain.

As of now,the overall situation in the 30 reservoirs in the four southern states of Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka,Tamil Nadu and Kerala is better than normal. Storage is better than normal in Madhya Pradesh as well.

But the reservoirs in Himachal Pradesh,Orissa,West Bengal,Uttarakhand and Rajasthan are way below normal levels,having deficiencies of 50 per cent or more.

Basinwise,the southern rivers of Godavari and Cauvery and some west-flowing rivers have a good amount of water. Rivers like Mahi,Tapi,Mahanadi and east-flowing ones in central India are also close to their normal carrying capacities. However,the big rivers of the north and west,Ganga,Indus,Narmada,Sabarmati,and even Krishna are running deficient with a shortfall of 20 per cent or more of their normal flow at this time of the year.