Team Herald
PANJIM: As Goa received record rainfall in over a century, in all likelihood the State will not face water shortage for the second consecutive year in 2021. All seven dams — Anjunem, Chapoli, Salaulim, Amthane, Panchawadi, Gaunem and Tillari (within Goa’s share) — are full to the capacity, thanks to the excess rainfall.
Chief Engineer (Water Resources Department) Shrikant Patil said that reservoirs have enough water for irrigation and drinking purposes, next year.
“All dams are full to capacity; in fact these are more than 100 per cent full due to excess rainfall. Since we have enough raw water, the State, for the second consecutive year, will not depend on water from mining pits,” he told Herald.
In the summer months of 2019 and the preceding years, several villages including the mining belt were left dry owing to weak monsoon prompting the government to direct authorities to pump water from the mining pits.
With a good amount of rainfall last year followed by 2020, the WRD is confident that water for consumption and irrigation will be sufficient in April-May 2021. The department is now soon to close the 337 bandharas in November-December and store the water.
“We have planned the opening of bandharas in such a way that we do not fall short of water. We have 337 bandharas and all these are managed in such a way that in April-May, there is enough supply of water for irrigation and drinking,” Patil said, emphasising that WRD supplies raw water to the treatment water, further to which the treated water is supplied to consumers.
Until September 30, Goa received the highest Southwest Monsoon rainfall in a century, recording 41 per cent more than normal rainfall during the four-month long season. It was last in 1961 that the State recorded 160 inches of showers. The State also broke its six decade’s average normal trend, when it touched 165.4 inches of rains for the season.
