Mhaisal dam now has water for only two days

PONDA: With the pre-monsoon showers of Thursday, the water level of Mhaisal dam in Panchawadi, Ponda, has seen a slight increase. The water stock is now sufficient for just about two days.
Water resources minister Subhash Shirodkar said that they will have to survive on water from Opa if the state does not get showers within the next two days.
Entire Panchawadi and a part of Shiroda village is dependent on the water from Mhaisal dam, which has a capacity of 436.8 HaM (hectare meter). A water treatment plant (WTP) located at Gauliwada, atop Panchawadi hills, draws around 10 million litres per day (MLD) of water and supplies to both the villages.
Considering the water level of the dam, Shirodkar said, they had to cut the supply to Shiroda. Sources at the WTP said that they also had to stop work at the plant for a while.
Water division executive engineer Nivruti Parsekar said they have extended Opa water supply to Shiroda from Thursday by interconnecting the abandoned pipeline that was carrying water to the village before the Mhaisal WTP was commissioned.
On Thursday, the water division had replaced an old valve at Paniwada-Borim in Ponda to interconnect the existing Shiroda pipeline to facilitate transfer of Opa water to Shiroda and if needed up to Panchawadi, Parsekar said, adding, "This arrangement would be until the villages get rain and water storage into the dam reaches to drawing level."
TOI reported on Thursday that the Mhaisal dam had run dry on Wednesday evening. To tide things over, the WRD had arranged to supply potable water from the Opa water works to the people dependent on the reservoir's water.
Shirodkar has attributed the reasons behind the worsen situations of Mhaisal dam to lack of any perennial river at the dam and lack of pre-monsoon showers.
On May 25, the Mhaisal dam had just 4.5% water storage and WRD chief engineer Pramod Badami had said it was sufficient to cater to the drinking needs for a week.