Heavy rain continues to batter western Maharashtra

Heavy rain continues to lash parts of western Maharashtra, Raigad and Thane districts with more than 60 barrages submerged in Kolhapur district.

The rain has been particularly heavy in Satara and Kolhapur for the last three days. The water level in the Panchganga river in Kolhapur has risen by nine feet in the last couple of days.

A discharge of 1,200 cusecs of water is on from the district’s Radhanagari dam. The district’s Gaganbawda tehsil received more than 180 mm rain on Saturday.

While Pune recorded intense rain in the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, Sunday was relatively milder with only isolated parts like ghat areas witnessing intense bouts. Authorities said since Saturday, the intensity over the city had generally reduced.

Earlier on Saturday, State Water Resources Minister Jayant Patil had said that the Karnataka government had decided to set up a real-time data acquisition system at its Almatti and Narayanpur dams to monitor the water level — a move that would help prevent the recurrence of floods that wreaked havoc in Kolhapur and Sangli districts in 2019.

Mr. Patil said this following a high-level meeting with Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai at Bengaluru to resolve the water-related issues between the two neighbouring States.

After the 2019 floods, fingers were pointed at the Karnataka government for not releasing water from the Almatti dam on the Krishna river on time, which aggravated the situation in Kolhapur and Sangli.

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