Govt set to raise Mhaisal dam height to up storage

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Ponda: With the cabinet approving augmentation of the water treatment plant situated on the hill at Gawaliwada, Panchawadi, state govt is mulling raising the height of Mhaisal reservoir. The existing height of the reservoir is 26m and govt wishes to raise it by another half metre or one metre to increase storage, said minister for water resources Subhash Shirodkar .

The 230-m-long dam’s full reservoir level is 26m, with a total live storage of 436.8 hectare metres. The water treatment plant at Gawaliwada fetches water of around 10-18 million litres per day (MLD).

Considering the rising demand for potable water, govt recently approved augmentation of the Panchawadi plant. However, since it cannot rely on the Mhaisal dam alone as the dam has so far seen a critical situation in the summer of 2022, when storage dipped to 0.9% and the WRD was forced to gather water from the pits created inside reservoirs.

Keeping this in mind, the WRD had planned a Rs 280-crore bandhara at Mirabag, Sanvordem. It had planned to tap the Selaulim dam’s surplus water that goes to river and pour it into the Mhaisal reservoir by laying a pipeline between Mirabag and Panchawadi. This plan would have kept Mhaisal dam full round the year.

However, with rising opposition to the bandhara, the WRD has now mulls to raise the height of existing reservoir of the dam. Shirodkar told T
OI that work will be completed before 2027.