Reservoirs to the rescue if monsoon fails

India is staring at a dry spell, but all hope is not yet lost.

The storage position of 85 key reservoirs is better than it was last year -  and indeed, better than the average of the last 10 years, the government said on Wednesday.

In case of a drought-like situation, the government will be able to dip into the reservoirs to supply water for farming.

The live storage position of the reservoirs that are spread across the country was 42.148 billion cubic metres (BCM) as of June 5,2014

This is 133% of the storage of the corresponding period of the previous year, and 157 % of the mean of the last 10 years.

The chances of crop failure with the current levels of storage are dim as the monsoon rains have already hit Kerala. 

According to the Central Water Commission (CWC) that monitors the water level and storage of the 85 reservoirs, the present storage capacity in most of the regions was satisfactory except the southern region, comprising Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which has 30 reservoirs and whose total live storage was just 7.07 BCM or 14 % of the total storage capacity. 

The storage during the same period last year was 11% and the average of last 10 years was 18 %

The situation was said to be relatively most comfortable in the northern region, comprising Punjab, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, which has six reservoirs with total live storage capacity of 18.01 BCM.

The current live storage in these reservoirs was 6.82 BCM or 38 % of the total capacity

The storage of these reservoirs, during the same period last year was 31 % and that during the last 10 years (average) was 25 %

The 12 reservoirs in the central region, spanning UP, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, were filled with about 15.15 BCM of water against the combined live capacity of 42.30 BCM or 36 % of the total.

Last year, around the same time, these reservoirs were filled with 25 % of their total capacity and during the last 10 years, the mean volume remained 13% 

While nearly all the 85 reservoirs are critical sources for irrigation round the year, as many as 37 of them serve as key hydropower sources, generating more than 60 MW of electricity each.

The total available storage of these reservoirs was 155.046 BCM, which was about 61 % of the total capacity of an estimated 253.388 BCM capacity created in the country so far.

Over the last month, the storage of all 85 reservoirs fell sharply from 51.13 BCM on May 01,2014 to 42.148 BCM on June 5,2014 signalling massive overdrawing of water in the peak dry season.

Even as the present storage was 27 % of the total, the situation remains far from satisfactory amid strong predictions by the IMD of a below-normal monsoon this year