Pune's Water Crisis Worsens Despite Abundant Monsoon Rainfall

Nearly seven months of 2025 witnessed significant rainfall, leading to overflowing dams that supply water to the city. Yet, inexplicably, at the turn of the year, several areas of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad are facing a severe water crisis.

Residents of neighborhoods including Aundh Road, Kharadi, Bavdhan, Mhalunge, Tathawade, Model Colony, Kalyaninagar, and many more are all complaining about interrupted and poor water supply since at least the last one month. Many have pointed out that when rampant development does not align with improved civic infrastructure, increased stress on available resources and a heightened financial burden become inescapable realities, especially for the general public.

Water infra either missing or unused

Smaller societies, which can't afford tankers, have a tough time managing their needs and rely on local politicians to help them out whenever possible. Mahesh Gupta, a resident of Agnes co-operative housing society located on Aundh Road, said that while a functional civic body overhead tank is barely 400m from his society, there are multiple days when they receive no water.

“There are 16 flats in my society and for the last four years, we have been very frequently experiencing water supply problems. We have raised the issue multiple times, but officials are not resolving the issue,” Gupta said. “The lines are old and supply pressure is low. This hampers natural flow. We don't need a lot of water, because we aren’t a big society. However, we can't necessarily afford tankers, so we have to rely on a former corporator or some local representative to send us one,” he added.

Many don't get water in their taps despite having pipeline connections and in-house tanks, while others lack the infrastructure entirely, such as some residents of Bavdhan and Undri. Now, they want the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to ensure it is in place. “For the last two years, we have been beseeching PMC to build a tank in our area and lay new pipes, so we can get adequate water supply. Ideally, infrastructure should be built before builders are given permission or residents allowed to move in,” said Amol Chaudhare, a resident of Stargaze society in Bavdhan.

“We do have some pipes, but they were built by the gram panchayat pre-merger. We get water for one-and-a-half hours daily at very low pressure. We repurpose as much water as we can and use it for flushes, gardens, and more,” he added. “Despite this, we end up paying almost Rs 6.5 lakh per month in tanker costs for 660 flats. Then, there is additional maintenance cost to keep our sewage and water treatment plants running. This is over and above the water tax we pay PMC,” Chaudhare further said.

Vital resource gets too expensive

“Almost 60% of our society's annual budget goes towards purchasing water,” said Vinayak Kale, a resident of Aldea Espanola in Mhalunge, adding, “Phase 2 of our society alone has 188 flats. We spend about Rs 6-7 lakh on water each month. All of this is after a long monsoon spell and paying taxes to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).”

According to an IT professional, “We have the PMC pipeline and connection, but we still don't get any water. We have reached out to civic officials in the past, but in vain. We try to optimise and reuse our water, but there's only so much we can do.”

Areas on the city's periphery, including Kharadi, Wagholi, Undri, etc., are all facing a severe water crunch and remain heavily reliant on tankers to fulfill their daily requirements. Kharadi resident Mahzabin Saiyed told TOI that data collected internally from 33 societies showed that they spend around Rs 1 crore on tankers per month. “A meeting was held on Sept 3 under the 2023 directives of Bombay HC, based on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in 2022 by advocate Satya Muley on behalf of multiple neighborhood associations and societies. PMC water supply department chief engineer Nandkishor Jagtap was also present. Here, I highlighted that almost 30-35% of an average society's budget is being used to purchase water in Kharadi. Despite repeated requests and follow-ups, there has been no solution. After one tanker was found to supply STP water to a society in Dec 2024, the quality and reliability of this supply is also in question,” Saiyed said.

“We were assured in that meeting that the newly established overhead water tank in the area would be operational soon. Three months later, there is no progress. Prior to this, we visited Jagtap in his office with our grievances on July 24 this year. On July 29, we visited PMC commissioner Naval Kishore Ram. Yet, we continue to not just heavily rely on tankers and pay their exorbitant costs, but also pay water tax to PMC,” Saiyed added.

Citizens Say

There are two tanks in Kharadi that were supposed to be made operational by Oct 2025. These would have catered to societies on the Riverfront Road locality, in addition to a few more areas. However, nothing has happened. Basically, PMC only looks for timely collection of property taxes. If not paid on time, flat owners are penalized, but no regard is given to timely services for citizens. In fact, we are further punished by having to pay for water tankers — Deepak Patil | Chairman, Kharadi Housing Societies Welfare Association

Our society on NIBM Road has 248 flats and we get only 3,000 litres of water. We should ideally get 40,000 litres, for which we pay water tax to PMC. We try our best to constantly conserve water, repurposing it through our STP for use to clean common areas and water the garden. For drinking water, we need three tankers a day and seven more during summer for utilities, when borewells run dry. Even after being so careful, we continue to suffer. How is this fair? — Sonu Gajeralwar Vashi | Hospitality Consultant

‘Scarcity is result of nexus'

In 2023, HC directed that a special committee be established to look after water supply issues faced in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad. It was to be chaired by the divisional commissioner and meet once a month. But since 2024, they have met only four times. In the last meeting, PMC, PCMC, and PMRDA were directed to hold meetings with citizens to understand their woes, but nothing has happened yet on behalf of PMRDA and PCMC. Societies are spending Rs 1.5 crore annually on tankers. The business, often run by local representatives, does not allow for infra to be built, lest they go out of business. Local bodies should plan with foresight to meet demands of citizens for at least two decades. The current scarcity is man-made and a result of the nexus between tanker mafia and local politicians, unregulated by authorities. The divisional commissioner has also directed that FIRs be filed against builders who do not comply with water affidavits and told local bodies to discontinue the water affidavit system. But except PMRDA, PMC and PCMC are quiet on the subject, thereby fueling the woes of the common people of the region — Satya Muley | Advocate Representing Water Scarcity PIL in Bombay High Court

Official Says

In areas like Kharadi and Bavdhan, we are still developing infrastructure, which will take some time. We are doing all we can to close the leaks. Most of them are underground and difficult to detect. The goal is to get leaks under 20%. We have divided the city into 10 zones and have managed to considerably bring leaks down in seven or eight. We are working on fixing infra gaps — Nandkishor Jagtap | Chief Engineer, PMC Water Supply Department