More water cuts in Pune likely as rains play truant

Pune: It is the end of the first week of July but there is still no rain in and around Pune. If the city does not get heavy rain in the coming days, Punekars will have to be ready for some more water cuts in the near future. Considering the low storage of the water in dams, the Pune Municipal administration is planning to hold a meeting in the coming week to decide on cutting down water supply of the city further.

The civic administration already has cut down the water supply for the city in the last month and from June 28, the city is now getting water only once a day. The decision was taken after waiting for rain till June 25. There was no significant rain in the catchment areas of Khadakwasala, Warasgaon, Panshet and Temghar. When the civic administration took a decision of providing water once a day, there was 1.9 TMC water total in these four dams.
Now, at present the water level has gone down further and now there is only 1.5 TMC water in all four dams.
Speaking to media, PMC commissioner Vikas Deshmukh said, “The catchment of these dams has recorded 40 mm rain in last two days but that’s not sufficient. The IMD had predicted rainfall activity in the first week of July but there is no rain so far. Therefore, in order to provide available water to the city for longer period of time, the civic administration will have to take some tough decision. We will be taking a review of the water situation in the next week in a meeting with irrigation department officials after which decision of further water cuts will be taken.”