River overflowing and dam full, but water cuts back in Pimpri

The decision has been taken despite the fact that Pavana river has ample water and Pavana dam is filled to capacity.

pimpri-chinchwad municipal corporation, pcmc, pavana river, pavana river pune, pune pavana river, maharashtra floods, maharashtra rains, rains in maharashtra, pune news, city news, Indian Express

The water level in Pavana river has increased due to rains.

After three months of acute water shortage, residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad recently heaved a sigh of relief when the municipal corporation restored water supply every day, about 10 days ago. However, their relief was short-lived, as the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has decided to implement water cuts once again.

The decision has been taken despite the fact that Pavana river has ample water and the Pavana dam is filled to capacity. The river and the dam are the two main sources of water for Pimpri-Chinchwad. This time, the PCMC decided to introduce water cuts once a week. Civic officials said from Monday, the city will be divided into seven zones and each zone will face water cuts once a week.

“We are forced to implement water cuts to ensure equal distribution of water,” Joint City Engineer Makrand Nikam told The Indian Express. “This will help us ensure supply to areas which otherwise face water shortage”.

The decision has drawn fire from local residents, activists and even the civic Standing Committee, which accused the PCMC administration of trying to create “artificial water shortage”.

Back in May, the PCMC had started supplying water on alternate days as the water stock in Pavana dam had depleted in the harsh summer months. While the PCMC finally restored regular supply a few days ago, the civic administration was apparently not sure about the decision. Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar had insisted that alternate day water supply should continue as it would ensure equal distribution, help save water and avoid a crisis in case of inadequate rain later in the year.

The move to cut water supply once a week was first discussed at the PCMC’s Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday. The committee members strongly opposed the move, accusing the administration of creating “artificial water shortage” to push the commissioner’s agenda. Several members, including Pankaj Bhalekar, Aarti Choundhe, Rajendra Gawde, Santosh Londhe and Rahul Kalate, raised the issue.

“The commissioner has been repeatedly saying he favoured water supply on alternate days. Therefore, the administration is pushing his agenda,” said Bhalekar.

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“The corporators were agitated. They were not able to understand why, after heavy rain, flood-like situation and full river and dam, water cuts are still being introduced,” Standing Committee chairman Vilas Madegiri told The Indian Express.

Madegiri, a BJP leader, said the administration had told him that since some areas were getting a lower amount of water and other areas were receiving excess water, the civic administration has decided to opt for water cuts once a week to ensure equal distribution. “Every day, we will save 50 MLD water, which means 1,500 MLD will be saved in a month. This will help us tide over the water crisis in the future,” he said.

Local residents, too, have questions about why, despite a dam full to its capacity, their taps will run dry once a week. “For two-and-a-half years, the BJP has been ruling the civic body. Hardikar has been the commissioner for the same period. Why did they fail to put a working system in place? It is a failure of the administration and the ruling party,” said Manav Kamble, who heads the Nagari Haqq Suraksha Samiti.

Nikam, however, said the PCMC system was not sturdy enough to draw additional water from the river. “Besides, we can’t lift more than the quota allotted by the Irrigation department,” he said.

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Hardikar said the move will ensure proper distribution of water throughout the city and fewer complaints from local residents who face water shortage. “We need to plan ahead to avoid any shortage in the future. Local residents should get used to saving water,” he said.

Manoj Dattatrye More

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. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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