Double whammy for farmers as water levels remain low in many of State's reservoirs

It's a double whammy for farmers in rain deficient districts of Chhattisgarh as there is less water in State's reservoirs going by the observation of  Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

Chhatisgarh is among nine States having lesser storage than last year for corresponding period , a press release of  Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation informed on Friday.

The States with lesser storage are Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Odisha, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

States having better storage than last year for corresponding period are Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tripura, Maharashtra, AP&TG (Two combined projects in both states), Andhra Pradesh Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. States having equal storage than last year for corresponding period is Uttarakhand.

The Central region includes States of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. There are 12 reservoirs under CWC monitoring having total live storage capacity of 42.30 BCM. The total live storage available in these reservoirs is 9.65 BCM which is 23% of total live storage capacity of these reservoirs. The storage during corresponding period of last year was 28% and average storage of last ten years during corresponding period was 24% of live storage capacity of these reservoirs. Thus, storage during current year is less than the storage of last year and is also less than the average storage of last ten years during the corresponding period.

The water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country for the week ending on July 12, 2018 was 38.157 BCM which is 24% of total storage capacity of these reservoirs. This percentage was at 20% for the week ending on July 5, 2018. The level of water storage in the week ending on July 12, 2018 was 107% of the storage of corresponding period of last year and 99% of storage of average of last ten years.

 The total storage capacity of these 91 reservoirs is 161.993 BCM which is about 63% of the total storage capacity of 257.812 BCM which is estimated to have been created in the country. 37 reservoirs out of these 91 have hydro power benefit with installed capacity of more than 60 MW.