PANJIM: As against the worry of depleting water level at reservoirs, Water Resources Department (WRD) on Friday said there is enough water to meet the drinking water requirement of the State for more than a month, even if there is a delay in the south west monsoon arrival.
WRD confirmed that water is being pumped into Opa facility from various reservoirs, including abandoned mining pits.
The department further said that the water level in each reservoir is above the dead level. “There is sufficient water in the reservoirs of the State. There is no need to worry, even if monsoon is delayed,” WRD superintendent engineer BV Pujari said.
The water level at the State’s biggest dam – Selaulim reservoir – is at 30.20 metres which is above the dead level of 20.42 metres. Pujari said there is sufficient water in Selaulim dam to fulfil the requirement of 75-80 days.
Anjunem dam has 73.22 metres of water as on Friday as against its dead storage level of 61.50 metres, which according to WRD is sufficient for the next 30-35 days.
Further, the water at Amthane is at 45.57 metres as against the dead level of 29 metres. Another dam at Panchawadi has 21.01 metres of water as against the dead storage level of 14.7 metres and Chapoli dam has 31.82 metres as against dead level of 22 metres.
Pujari said the department had witnessed problems with a facility at Opa due to the dropping level of supply from Opa River. “The river had started drying out this year since January due to which problems were felt. But we have managed to tide over the crisis by pumping in water into this facility from various sources,” he said.
The department, he said, is pumping 35 million litres per day (MLD) water from a similar facility at Ganjem, 50 MLD of water is pumped from Selaulim and 65 MLD from three different abandoned iron ore mining pits.
The south-west monsoon over Goa coast is likely to be delayed as the onset over Kerala is expected on June 6 as per IMD.
