With only one month of the monsoon remaining, the water levels in 81 crucial reservoirs are about 27 per cent below the average of the past ten years’ levels at this time, and at about 67 per cent of the last year’s level, show government data released last Friday for the week ending August 27.

In fact, there are three reservoirs — Sriramsagar in Andhra Pradesh and Isapur and Yeldari in Maharashtra — that have no live storage and with water levels that are running at negative storage capacities.

Even as almost three fourth of the monsoon season is over, the overall picture is dull as 25 of 81 reservoirs are still running below 50 per cent of average levels. Of the remaining reservoirs, less that half (36) have storage more than 80 per cent, while about one fourth (17) had storage in the range of 50 per cent to 80 per cent of normal storage levels, the Water Resources Ministry had reported on August 20 to the Crop Weather Watch group that monitors the progress of the Kharif crop on a weekly basis.

In terms of the 12 major river basins across the country, water storage in only two — Narmada (+8.20 per cent) and Kaveri (+8.64 per cent) — are above the average levels of the last 10 years while most of all other river basins are running substantially below the average.

The Ganga (-37.69 per cent) and Indus (-46.89 per cent) river basins, crucial for most of the North and Northwest region’s agriculture, are running substantially below the average levels as on Friday last week.

... contd.