CWC keeping watch on 81 water reservoirs

New Delhi, Jun 3 (UNI) With the onset of the monsoon, the Central Water Commission (CWC) is keeping a close watch on the storage position of 81 important reservoirs in the country, of which 36 reservoirs have significant hydro-power benefits with installed capacity of more than 60 MW each.

The combined live storage in the 81 reservoirs at the beginning of monsoon, that is May 29, 2008, was 21 per cent of the designed capacity and stood at 25 per cent of the designed capacity on June 1, 2007.

The present storage is 92 per cent of last year's storage and 140 per cent of last 10 year's average storage during the same period. Of these reservoirs, there are at present 19 reservoirs where this year's storage is 80 per cent or less than the average of previous 10 years.

In the remaining 62 reservoirs the storage is more than 80 per cent of the average of previous 10 years.

The storage position in 10 basins namely Ganga, Tapi, Mahi, Sabarmati, Narmada, the rivers of Kutch, Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery and neighbouring east flowing rivers and west flowing rivers of south is better than average of previous 10 years.

While Mahanadi and neighbouring east flowing rivers are flowing close to normal and Indus is deficient in flow.

Out of the 36 reservoirs with significant hydro potential, 14 reservoirs have storage build up less than the average of last 10 years capacity.

To derive full benefit from the available water, the Commission is keeping in touch with the Department of Agriculture and Co-operation and providing information of the weekly storage position to the Crop Weather Watch Group to evolve suitable crop strategies and also apprise the situation to various Departments and ministries involved in Water Resources planning.

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