Water crisis looms over the North, East

The northern region has 11 reservoirs CWC is monitoring, and a total live storage capacity of 19.836 BCM

- Vijay C. Roy & Rituraj Baruah

Water levels in major reservoirs across the northern and eastern regions have dipped below last year's, the Central Water Commission (CWC) said in its weekly bulletin. They also had below-normal storage; normal storage refers to the average storage of the past 10 years.

Falling water levels are a cause for concern as they can impact irrigation and hydropower generation.

The northern region, including Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan, has 11 reservoirs being monitored by the CWC, and a total live storage capacity of 19.836 billion cubic metres (BCM). As per the reservoir storage bulletin, as of 3 April, the total live storage available was 4.555BCM, which is 22.96% of the reservoirs' total live storage capacity, compared with 32.32% during the corresponding period last year.