Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) is well prepared to ensure drinking water to the city even though its dam at Thumbe in Bantwal taluk has witnessed a gradual decrease in the water level due to lack of inflow and evaporation.MCC commissioner Ravichandra Naik said the city has a stable drinking water supply and asked people not to panic. Naresh P Shenoy, deputy commissioner (development), MCC, said the city corporation will ensure that the city will have no drinking water shortage crisis. “Since it is peak summer, the water level in the dam is gradually decreasing as there is no inflow. Since the AMR dam upstream of the Thumbe dam is filled to the maximum, there is no need to panic. Thumbe dam has 5 metres of water in it. Meanwhile, the AMR has 18.8 metres. At present, the water at Thumbe dam is sufficient to ensure uninterrupted water supply to the city for the next 25 days. Even if the water level in Thumbe dam dips further, we can release water from the AMR dam,” Shenoy explained.The city corporation also has another option to lift water from the Harekala dam, which is located downstream of Thumbe dam, he added.In fact, the water level at Thumbe dam, which was 5.5 metres two days ago, was reduced to 5 metres on Thursday. However, the situation is significantly better than in previous years. With additional pumping from Harekala dam, the supply of drinking water to the city can be extended up to 110 days, officials said.The city corporation pumps an average of 160 MLD of water from Thumbe dam to the city every day. Meanwhile, a new 20 MLD treatment plant at Ramalkatte is under construction to further boost supply.
