City facing water cut in June, first time in 20 years

Surat: Surat is staring at serious water crisis in second half of June. With rains unlikely before June 25, there is little possibility of additional water supply from Ukai reservoir before June 25.
Surat Municipal Corporation’s (SMC) standing committee chairman Anil Goplani called a meeting of hydraulic department officials to find out ways to deal with the impending situation. City is likely to face 10-15% water cuts for the first time in two decades.
On Thursday, the levels at Ukai reservoir on Tapi river was 278.03 feet and live storage of water was 275.74 million cubic metre (MCM). Last year on May 30, the levels were 289.70 feet with water storage was 769.43 MCM.
“ The levels are the lowest in the last two decades and we will have to make sure that water is used judiciously,” said Goplani.
“There will be no problem till June 15. However, in the second half of the month, we have to do with 10-15% less water till more water can be released from Ukai,” he added.
After the meeting, Goplani said that SMC has decided to increase the subsidy of Rs 20,000 given at present for setting up water harvesting system to Rs 30,000 .
“We will encourage more and more people to set up rainwater harvesting systems so that water table rise,” he said.
In the meeting, it was decided to speed up the work for setting up a second weir in the downstream of Tapi river at Rundh-Magdalla. Once this weir comes up, it will create a 19 MCM storage capacity water reservoir from one to other weir and that water could serve as a buffer in the future.
Officials from Surat irrigation said June will be a crucial month because no fresh water is likely to flow in Ukai dam from upstream as rains are unlikely in upper catchments. “ Whatever new water that will flow in will be only towards end of June and after that. We will have to do with what we have till then,” an official said.