As heavy rains lash Mumbai, city's Powai lake starts overflowing

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], June 12 : Following heavy rains in Maharashtra, Mumbai's Powai lake has started overflowing, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said on Saturday.
As per the release by BMC, "Powai Lake, one of the most important artificial lakes in the BMC area, has started flowing at around 3 pm today. The same lake was completely flooded on July 5 last year. Considering this, this year the lake has started filling up and flowing about 24 days earlier than last year."
The water of this lake with a storage capacity of 545 crore liters is mainly used for industrial purposes as it is not fit for human consumption. Due to the rains in the catchment area of the lake in the last few days, the lake has started overflowing, said the water engineer department of the municipal corporation.
The lake is located approximately 27 km (about 17 miles) from the BMC headquarters.
The construction of this artificial lake was completed in the year 1890 at an estimated cost of around Rs 40 lakh.
The catchment area of this lake is about 6.61 km and when the lake is full then the water area is about 2.23 square km. When the lake is full, it holds 545.5 crore liters (5455 million liters) of water. After the lake is full and flowing, the water of this lake goes to Mithi river.
The India Meteorological Department has predicted widespread rainfall activity with heavy to very heavy falls over coastal and adjoining Ghats districts of Maharashtra and Goa and Karnataka during next five days.
On June 11, the Mayor of Mumbai Kishori Kishor Pednekar notified that strict action would be taken against those who are found dumping garbage in the drains and gutters. She said so keeping in view the blockage of 'nallas', meant for drainage of rainwater. Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMC) administration has also been instructed to create more awareness about the same and the use of CCTV cameras to monitor defaulters has also been proposed.
Citing the reason for strictness, Pednekar said, "In the nallahs carrying rainwater, it is observed that plastic, goods, garbage etc. are being dumped in many places, which hinders the flow of rainwater. As a result, the citizens of the area are suffering due to flooding."
She had said that 458 pumps have been installed to pump out the rainwater and work is underway to cover 73000 manholes.
An orange alert was issued for Mumbai on Friday. Traffic jams for hours, waterlogging on streets brought life to a standstill in the city.