No water crisis in city as Pench dams full

Nagpur: Totladoh and Kamptee Khairi dams of Pench River, main source of city’s water supply, have filled upto brim leading to opening of their gates. It also means there will be no raw drinking water shortage for the city and sufficient water will be available for for irrigation in Nagpur and Bhandara districts. Koradi and Khaparkheda thermal power stations will also have sufficient water.
Jayant Gavli, superintending engineer of Water Resources Department (WRD) told TOI, “10 of 14 gates of Totladoh reservoir and 12 of 16 gates of Kamptee Khairi were opened on Sunday. The dams were filled upto 95% with rains received in their own catchment. On Saturday, four gates of Totladoh were opened. We got alert that Madhya Pradesh (MP) government had opened gates of Chaurai dam upstream of Totladoh. Hence, we opened more gates on Sunday.”
Gavli added there would be sufficient raw drinking water for the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), irrigation and other consumers for one year, especially next summer. “Still, over 45 days of monsoon is left which means more rains,” he said.
The live storage capacity of Totladoh reservoir is 1,017 million metre cube (MMC) and that of Kamptee Khairi reservoir is 142 MMC for a total of 1,159 MMC.
The city had to face water cuts for three days in a week in summer of 2019. The live storage of Pench dams was nil forcing WRD to give use dead storage. Then rains played truant in early part of monsoon in 2019 and the dams did not get sufficient water creating panic. Irrigation for kharif crop was affected to a great extent.
Then, good rainfall occurred in catchment area of Chaurai dam in Chhindwara district of MP which led to opening of its gates in October and filling up of Totladoh and Kamptee Khairi as well.
This ensured there was no shortage of water for irrigation in rabi season last year and no crisis for city’s drinking water supply in summer this year. Pench dams were left with around 55% storage at the end of summer. This and timely rainfall this season led to early filling up of dams.
The chances of opening of all gates of Totladoh and Kamptee Khairi, respectively, in next few days cannot be ruled out. If that happens and rains continue in region, it will lead to full storage in Gosikhurd dam and opening of its gates too.