Mumbai Suspends Water Supply to Construction Sites Amid Monsoon Drought

Mumbai has suspended water supply to construction sites as a stalled monsoon and the worst June rain deficit in two decades risk slowing business activity in India’s financial hub.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) also cut distribution to other businesses, factories, and sports clubs by 20%, adding to the 10% reduction in force for households since mid-May, according to a Tuesday directive. It also stopped supplying water to swimming pools.

The drastic intervention marks the first such embargo in 12 years on developers, a sector that anchors Mumbai’s economy. The capital city of Maharashtra — the western Indian state that contributes the most to the nation’s GDP — is undergoing an urban makeover with the ambition to rank among the world’s top financial centers.

Active construction won’t grind to an immediate halt as builders largely rely on groundwater to mix and cure concrete, according to property consultant Anarock Group. However, the availability of drinking water and sanitation for on-site laborers would be impacted, threatening productivity, it said in a statement. With the civic body refusing to sanction fresh connections until reservoirs replenish, the consultancy said builders face inevitable delays in new project approvals across the metropolitan area that accounts for roughly 32% of all housing units sold in India’s top seven cities.

The industry can manage with better planning and increased use of recycled water and alternative sourcing, said Boman Irani, founder, chairman & managing director at developer Rustomjee Group. The shortage highlights the importance of long-term sustainability measures, he said.

Rationing of water — this year an outcome of a strong El Nino that causes hotter-than-usual summer and disrupts monsoon rains — is not new to the city. BMC has cut pre-monsoon supply in six of the past 10 years. Even so, the current measures are Mumbai’s strictest curbs since a 20% citywide reduction in 2020.

The metropolis is on track to record its driest June in two decades, according to private forecaster Skymet Weather Services Pvt., as India expects a nationwide monsoon deficit. The city has so far received roughly 2.5% of its 30-year average precipitation for the month. The combined stock across the seven rain-fed reservoirs is likely to last about 40 days.

The shortage disproportionately drains the municipal authority’s finances. While the city spends a little over a quarter of its annual budget on water supply and sewerage projects, it generates less than 5% of its revenue from subsidized bills.

To cope with increasingly erratic weather cycles, the BMC is exploring a nearly 112 billion-rupee ($1.2 billion) desalination facility in the city’s north. Alongside, it plans to add 440 million liters by 2030 through the first new reservoir in over a decade, under construction 110 km north of Mumbai. The civic authority has also ordered large commercial consumers to transition to recycled municipal wastewater.

Yet, a water crunch is not the only challenge for the city’s planners. Data show Mumbai has exceeded its seasonal monsoon average in eight of the last 10 years, with rainfall swelling in July and August. Climate change, researchers have noted, is increasingly causing long dry summer spells, only to give way to bursts of extreme precipitation. That has trapped Mumbai in a cycle where it rations water in June and battles flooding a month later.