Nagpur: Amid the drought gloom in the rest of Vidarbha, there is some good news for farmers in Gondia as five of the six dams in the district are almost full, with over 90% of the storage reserved for irrigation.The five dams in Gondia have more storage than most in other districts of the region due to heavy rainfall over the last week in neighbouring Chhattisgarh as well as cloud cover in the district itself.The sixth dam, Rajiv Sagar (Bawanthadi), holds only 32% of its live storage, as its catchment area is mostly in Madhya Pradesh, the second state which borders Gondia, where there has been a deficit in rainfall.The data was recorded by district officials on Sunday morning. Water is supplied for irrigation from these dams to Gadchiroli and Bhandara, apart from Gondia.Sanjay Sarovar, the largest of the six with 410 million cubic metres (MCM) of live capacity, and Itiadoh, with 317.87 MCM, are both at 100%. Sirpur and Kalisarar are at 98% each, while Pujaritola stands at 85%.Itiadoh is still overflowing because its water level is at 255.63m, 3cm above its full reservoir level of 255.60m.Rajiv Sagar, with a live capacity of 254.69 MCM, holds just 81.63 MCM against 246.03 MCM last year, a shortfall of about 164 MCM. Its gross capacity is 280.24 MCM.The six dams have a gross capacity of 1,426.9 MCM, or 50.4 TMC. The total live storage stands at 1,028.6 MCM against 1,196.2 MCM last year. That is about 85% of their combined live capacity of 1,211.9 MCM, compared with about 99% last year. Rajiv Sagar accounts for almost all of the difference.Canals at Rajiv Sagar released 3.705 MCM in the 24 hours before the report dated Sunday morning, against 2.68 MCM from Pujaritola and 0.815 MCM from Itiadoh.Rainfall this monsoon ranges from 894.6mm in Tirora to 1,327.4 mm in Deori among Gondia’s eight talukas. Itiadoh’s dam site has recorded 1,139mm rainfall since June 1, Sirpur 1,074mm and Kalisarar 1,035mm.Ketan Girhepunje, section engineer at Itiadoh, said most of the district’s dams are used mainly for irrigation. “At Itiadoh, about 99% of the stored water goes to irrigation and about 1% to drinking water, and there is no industrial supply,” said Girhepunje.Among rivers, Wainganga at Deori is flowing at 266.30m, well below its warning level of 277m, while Bagh at Rajegaon is at 274.81m against a warning level of 282m.
