Koyna dam catchment areas report heavy rainfall, IMD issues yellow alert till Saturday

Kolhapur: While Koyna dam’s water level on Tuesday morning reached its lowest in the past 12 years, 61 mm rainfall received between 8am to 5pm on the same day gave some hope to the villagers from the catchment and downstream areas.The first heavy spell of monsoon rainfall was received in Satara district on Tuesday, with Navaja reporting 52mm showers followed by Mahabaleshwar at 43mm. The rainfall in eight hours on Tuesday stood at 55% of the cumulative rainfall received since June 1 at these places.The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert from Wednesday to Saturday for Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur and Sangli districts, with thunderstorms accompanied with lightning, light to moderate intensity rainfall and gusty winds to be received in ghat areas and plains.On Tuesday, 8.67 % (8.7 TMC) of live storage was available in the dam. The previous low was in June 2014 when the live water level in Koyna dam had receded to 9TMC.Owing to the depleted water level in the Koyna reservoir, communication between around 105 villages in the Koyna, Kandati, Kharoshi, Renoshi and Solshi valleys was disrupted, as these villages were largely dependent on boat movement.The halt in tourism created a serious problem for the livelihoods of people in the area.

The water crisis in several villages became serious as the water level of the reservoir dropped below the water-lifting level.Sadanand Shinde, a boatman from Tapola, said, “Rural connectivity here stays through the boats. People use boats to travel for their daily needs. If the boats are not available, one has to travel for around 80km to reach the other side. As the water level has reached its lowest, the boats are parked in the silt and no tourists are arriving at Tapola affecting our livelihood at large.”Meanwhile, officials at the Koyna dam are positive the dam will get filled to capacity. “When there is 100% rainfall in the dam area, there is an inflow of an average 190 TMC of water in a year. Often, about 60 TMC of water has to be released to the east during heavy rainfall. While the IMD has predicted a possibility of 90 % rainfall, there is no problem in filling this dam to its capacity even if there is 65 % of the average rainfall,” the official said.