The municipal corporation in Mumbai on Tuesday announced additional measures to conserve water, saying that only 10.3% reserves were remaining in the reservoirs that supply water to the city.

The new curbs on non-essential use of water will include a 20% reduction in supply for industrial units, commercial establishments and sports clubs, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said.

Water connections to swimming pools and for construction activities will be temporarily disconnected, the civic body said.

The new restrictions will take effect on Wednesday.

The municipal corporation urged citizens to use borewell water or that drawn from wells for washing vehicles, watering gardens and parks, and cleaning roads and public areas.

New water connections for construction projects will be suspended until further notice, it added.

The municipal corporation also urged the railways, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers company located in the Chembur area, petroleum companies, the Indian Navy, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation and the port authorities to reuse treated water from the Colaba and other sewage treatment plants for operational purposes.

The civic body had already implemented precautionary measures to conserve water citing delayed southwest monsoon caused by the El Niño effect and the declining levels in the reservoirs supplying Mumbai. The curbs included a 10% cut in supply since May 15.

El Niño weather phenomenon, which involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to reduced monsoon rainfall in India.

Mumbai requires about 4,664 million litres of water per day but has been receiving 4,100 million litres of water per day.

The delay in the onset of the monsoon has led to concerns about shortage of rainfall, water scarcity and continued high temperatures in several regions of the country.

Data from the India Meteorological Department on Tuesday showed that the monsoon had reached southern Maharashtra in the west, parts of Odisha in the south-east and regions of West Bengal and Bihar in the east.

The advance line of the monsoon was at least four days behind the usual date of onset in Mumbai, southern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. India had received only 19.2 mm of rainfall between June 4 and June 15, against a normal of 53.7 mm. This is a rainfall deficit of 64.2%.

The weather department has forecast a heatwave in parts of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana this week.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: