This is an archive article published on October 19, 2022
Pune: Pimpri-Chinchwad continues to battle water shortage, faces uphill task as 1,000 new flats coming up every year
“Our population is rising. Pimpri-Chinchwad has now reached the 30 lakh figure. Every year, 1,000 flats are being added to the city. Though we will be getting additional 50 MLD water, it in no way will help us provide round the clock water to the city,” PCMC joint city engineer Shrikant Savane told The Indian Express
The PCMC collected Rs 1,000 crore development charges from the builders in the last fiscal (File)
Even as the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) Monday announced the industrial city will get additional 50 MLD water from the Andra dam located in Maval taluka, it has, however, emerged the civic body will not be able to provide 24×7 water to the citizens which it has been promising since last year. The rising population and expansion of the city are said to be the reasons behind the same.
The officials said 1,000 new flats are coming up in the city every year. “Our population is rising. Pimpri-Chinchwad has now reached the 30 lakh figure. Every year, 1,000 flats are being added to the city. Though we will be getting additional 50 MLD water, it in no way will help us provide round the clock water to the city,” PCMC joint city engineer Shrikant Savane told The Indian Express.
The situation, said officials, is such that the civic body is not in a position to cater to the current population itself. “As per the norms, the civic body is supposed to provide 90 LPCD (litre per capita per day) water to the residential societies, but we are in a position to provide only 40 LPCD water. Though for some societies we are providing 70 LPDC water,” Savane said.
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The PCMC collected Rs 1,000 crore development charges from the builders in the last fiscal. “Before that, we collected around Rs 950 development charges. The trend has been similar for the last three to four years. Every year 1,000 to 1,200 flats are being constructed and occupied by the families. But in comparison the stock in water is not rising,” he said.
Savane said more apartment buildings are being constructed in the city. “These buildings are yet to be completed. They will also be applying for water connections which we will have to provide. This means, there will be more water consumption. The situation on the water front is becoming grimmer,” he said.
The officials said the industrial city will get additional 50 MLD water from the Andra dam from next month. “After that in the next three months, we will get 50 MLD water from the same dam. In all, we will getting 100 MLD from Andra dam,” Savane said.
Maval MP Shrirang Barne, Bhosari MLA Mahesh Landge, Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh and other officials visited the Chikhli water treatment plant Monday to take stock of the situation.
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“Pimpri-Chinchwad will be getting 50 MLD water from next month. This additional water will be provided to areas like Wakad, Pimple Nilakh, Pimple Gurav and Ravet,” Barne said.
Landge said, “Once 100 MLD water from Andra dam becomes available, it will help streamline the water supply in Chikhli, Talawade, Moshi, Nighoje, Dudulgaon area.”
Besides Andra dam, Pimpri-Chinchwad will also be getting 267 MLD water from Bhama Askhed dam. “The water pipeline laying work is under progress from Bhama Askhed dam to Pimpri-Chinchwad. It will take at least two years for the work to be completed,” the officials said.
The PCMC currently lifts 510 MLD water from the Pavana dam every day and supplies water to the citizens on alternate days.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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