Prateek Tanmay
2 min readBengaluruJul 6, 2026 08:06 PM IST
More than a month after the onset of the southwest Monsoon, reservoirs in Karnataka are yet to receive good inflows. None of the major dams have half the water storage they had at the same time last year.
Data from the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre showed that while the gross capacity of 14 major reservoirs in the state is 895.65 TMC, the water level as of Monday was 212.9 TMC. During the same period last year, storage in the dams was 595.3 TMC.
While inflows to reservoirs such as Linganamakki and Ghataprabha have increased due to heavy rain in the Malnad and coastal regions, the situation remains grim for other reservoirs in the state. For instance, the current storage of the 49.45 TMC Krishnarajasagar dam built across the Cauvery river is 11.49 TMC—23 per cent of the total capacity. Similarly, the Kabini dam—built across a tributary of the Cauvery—has 6.74 TMC of water against the full storage level of 19.52 TMC. These two dams are key water providers for Bengaluru and surrounding regions and were almost full during the same period last year.
In northern Karnataka, water inflow to major reservoirs across the Krishna—Almatti and Narayanapura—remains low. The Narayanapura dam, which is downstream of Almatti, had zero inflow as of Monday, while inflow for Almatti was around 1,000 cusecs. Inflow is expected to improve in the coming days due to good showers in catchment areas.
Overall rainfall of 165 mm
In terms of rainfall, the state has recorded a deficit of 34 per cent during the monsoon season starting June 1. Compared to an average of 249 mm for the period, the overall rainfall was 165 mm.
Malnad districts, which form the catchment area for most rivers originating in the state, have received about half the average rainfall during the period. Against a normal of 483 mm for the districts, rainfall received was 263 mm.
Forecasts indicate that a good spell of rain is likely before the end of the week.
