Mumbai Lake Water Levels Today, 11 Sept 2026

Where Mumbai's water comes from

Mumbai's drinking water comes entirely from seven reservoirs in the Sahyadri ranges, collectively called the seven lakes. At full capacity they hold about 1,447,363 ML — enough for roughly a year at current demand. BMC's Hydraulic Department operates the intake works, treatment plants at Bhandup and Pise, and the distribution network that reaches 13 million residents.

Daily demand runs at roughly 3,950 MLD. The lakes are recharged almost entirely during the June–September monsoon; once the season ends, the city draws down whatever was stored. A poor monsoon with no carryover stock from the previous year is the scenario that forces water cuts.

How to read these numbers

Percent full is measured against each lake's full reservoir level capacity — not against any demand figure. A lake at 78% has 78% of its design volume. Two lakes at 78% may not contribute equally to supply if their absolute capacities differ significantly.

Overflowing appears when storage exceeds 100%. Gates open and water spills into the spillway channel. This isn't waste in the engineering sense — the spillway protects the dam — but it does mean the lake can't hold any more rain until levels drop.

The report date is the date of the 6 AM BMC reading. The page headline shows today's calendar date in Indian Standard Time; the storage figures are from the latest filed report, which may be from the previous day if BMC hasn't published yet when you load the page.

The seven lakes

• Bhatsa — the largest lake by far, contributing just over half of Mumbai's total storage capacity. Located in Shahapur taluka, Thane district.
• Upper Vaitarna — second-largest; sits in Nashik district about 100 km north of the city. Completed in 1969 to extend supply as the city grew.
• Middle Vaitarna — shares the Vaitarna river catchment with its larger neighbour but is managed and metered separately by BMC.
• Tansa — one of the oldest supply sources, commissioned in 1892. Supplies the northern suburbs and some industrial zones.
• Modak Sagar — feeds eastern Mumbai and some areas of Thane. Water is conveyed through the Bhandup treatment complex.
• Vihar — inside Sanjay Gandhi National Park, making it one of the few supply reservoirs located within a city's administrative limits.
• Tulsi — the smallest of the seven, also within SGNP. Supplements Vihar's supply for parts of the western suburbs.

Where the data comes from

Lake figures — stored volume, level, 24-hour change, and rainfall — come directly from BMC's Hydraulic Engineer's Department daily bulletin, issued at 6 AM from Bhandup Complex. We transcribe values verbatim; no interpolation or smoothing is applied.

Dam figures for city pages come from the Maharashtra WRD Pravah portal's daily Major project report — this covers dams such as Barvi, Dhamni (Surya Project), and others across the Konkan and Nashik regions. Because WRD uses MCM and TMC, we convert to ML so the unit is consistent across the site. WRD's public report covers Major irrigation projects only; some Medium and Minor project dams are not included, so those city pages show the dam as pending rather than showing a figure.

For full details on rounding, methodology, and the difference between BMC's “useful live storage” and WRD's gross storage figures, see the methodology page.