Weather dept forecasts rains for Gujarat this week

Gujarat, which was facing shortage of rainfall till last week, is all set to get respite with the weather department predicting moderate to heavy rainfall with thundershowers in parts of the state in the next couple of days as the monsoon was active over the Arabian sea. Even the parched Suarashtra regions is likely to receive heavy showers towards the end of the week.

In the last 24 hours moderate rainfall occurred in a few places of Saurashtra mainly in Rajkot district. Rainfall also occurred at a few places over Saurashtra and at isolated places over the rest of the state.

According to the Indian Meteorological department (IMD), Ahmedabad, “upper cyclonic circulation over south Pakistan and adjoining area now lies over north east Arabian sea and adjoining Saurahstra-Kutch. Also, the off shore trough that extends from Gujarat coast to Kerala coast persists with an upper air cyclonic circulation over Gujarat state.”

With the new system developing in the Arabian sea, moderate to rather heavy rain would occur at a few places in the districts of Gujarat and in Diu, Daman, Dadra Nagar Haveli in the next two days.

Also, towards mid of the week heavy rains are likely to occur at a isolated places over Gujarat region and Saurashtra, said the IMD forecast for the coming days.

IMD director here Jayant Sarkar said that there has been notable shortfall of rain in the state. “The deficiency of rainfall for Gujarat region comprising of south, north and central part of the state, as on July 13 was 91 per cent, while for the Saurahstra-Kutch region shortfall was around 75 per cent,” Sarkar said.

The deficiency is calculated based on longterm rainfall data collected over the years.

As on July 14, the total rainfall in Gujarat was 5.81 per cent against average rainfall calculated over the last ten years.

There were as many as 62 talukas out of the 225 in the state which have not received rainfall till date.

On the other hand the state government machinery continued supply of drinking water through tankers to 202 village in Kutch district while fodder was being distributed to over 240 villages across the state.

Commissioner of relief operations D N Pandey said that supply of drinking water and fodder continued as per last week and they would be assessing the situation further on July 15.

The water level in the state reservouirs has also come down marginally since last week. The gross storage capacity of all major dams in the state is 21,014.94 million cubic meter (mcm).

On July 11 it stood at 8,755.65 mcm, as per data released by the Narmada, Water Resources, Water Supply and Kalpasar Department of the Gujarat government. This is 41.66 per cent (as against 42.18 per cent last week) of the gross storage capacity of the major dams including the Sardar Sarovar Project on river Narmada.

Meanwhile, the state government has restricted use of water in reservouirs and water bodies across Saurashtra-Kutch region and north Gujarat only for drinking water purpose. Now water from these reservouirs and water bodies will be used for irrigation purpose.