BMC desilts Tansa to save water for Mumbai

You are probably wondering for how much longer you will be subjected to news of water shortage.

The truth is, the issue is a grave one and only likely to get worse by the day. What’s more, rising temperatures in the city only seem to be compounding the problem.

Having learnt a lesson the hard way, this year, the BMC has decided to store more water during the monsoon. For this it has decided to desilt the Tansa lake, thereby increasing its capacity by 1,400 million litres.

The dam was constructed 116 years ago and in the last 25 years the civic body has not desilted the lake even once. There is approximately 18 million cubic metres of silt in the lake.

Rahul Shevale, standing committee chairman, who visited the lake along with committee members recently, decided to get the lake desilted. “Due to the silt the lake capacity has decreased,” Shevale said.

The silt was last removed in 1978, but the desilting had not been conducted properly. According to a study by the Maharashtra Engineering Research Institute (MERI), Nashik, after the lake is cleaned, water that will last the city for at least 30-35 days can be stored.

Meanwhile, the civic body has also started repair work on the water tunnel at Malad that was punctured while a resident was illegally digging a borewell.

Due to the repair work, water supply will be sent out through the old lines. There will be less pressure as the water lines are old and cannot bear any extra pressure. As a result, areas in Malad, Kandivli, Goregaon, Borivli and Dahisar will get less water on Monday.