Water Supply to be Reduced in Pune: Scarcity or Uniformity?

Megha Murkya

Pune – The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has planned to provide water for five hours a day from Monday(29th October). This comes as a consequence of the state government’s decision to reduce the city’s supply by 200 MLD. Earlier the supply used to be 1350 MLD which will be reduced to 1150 MLD.

Mayor Mukta Malik said that the new water supply schedule is to ensure that there is uniformity of water distribution in the city. As there was unequal distribution of water; some areas got water twice a day while others only once.

Municipal Commissioner Saurabh Rao, said” There will be no impact on the quantity of water supply. Changes have been made in zoning for water distribution so that pressure is adequately high.”

After the completion of the closed pipeline project between Parvati (500 MLD capacity WTP) and Cantonment Pumping station(300 MLD capacity WTP), till 10th of November, the leakage of 100-150 MLD will be stopped. It will compensate for the reduction in the supply as the city will save around 100 MLD to 150 MLD per day, ” Rao said.

Some Statistical Reality

The Water Allocation to the City, as per the agreement between Pune Municipal Corporation and State Irrigation Department the city has been allocated 900 MLD of water annually against which the city consumes around 1250 MLD of water per day. And the population of the city stands 3.8 million. Amongst this population the distribution is unequal.

This decision comes as boon, as the quantity of supply is the same but the beneficiaries have increased as this ensures uniformity and not scarcity!!