Water scarcity forces villagers to leave houses in drought-hit Bellary

NEW DELHI: With the mercury soaring across the country, the water storage availability at India's 91 major reservoirs has dipped to 37.92 billion cubic metres, which is just 24% of total storage capacity of these reservoirs.The central water commission in its latest bulletin noted that the storage status of these reservoirs as on April 7 was less than the corresponding period last year.The reservoirs usually get their share of water during the June-September monsoon period. The decline of water availability this year is attributed to less rainfall in 2014 and 2015. Since water from these reservoirs is used for irrigation purposes, the status of availability indicates the position of supply during rabi (winter) crop season.With the India Meteorological Department predicting abundant rainfall this year, it is expected these reservoirs will get enough water during the June-September period.At present, states having lesser storage than last year for corresponding period are Himachal, Punjab, Bengal, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, Uttarakhand, MP, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.Only two states, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura, have reported better storage vis-a-vis the previous year.The total storage capacity of these 91 reservoirs is nearly 157bcm or nearly 62% of the total storage capacity of 253 bcm estimated to have been created in the entire country. Thirty-seven reservoirs out of these 91 have hydro-power benefit with installed capacity of more than 60 MW.The decline of water availability this year is attributed to less rainfall in 2014 and 2015. However, with the IMD predicting abundant rainfall this year, it is expected these reservoirs will get enough water during the June-September period.