Pune : Residents of Undri Frustrated with Water Woes: Heavy Reliance on Private Water Tankers
By: Pune Pulse
September 14, 2023
Pune: Residents of the Undri area are suffering every day due to no water supply from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), no water lines developed or repaired, etc.
Speaking to Pune Pulse, Dilip Shah, President of Undri Residents’ Forum, and chairman of Astonia Classic Society, Undri said, “We haven’t got water supply from the PMC since many, many years. Water lines are not developed here. We have to resort to buying water tankers every day. There are around 400 flats in the Astonia Classic Society. Everyone is simply sick & tired of paying extra money out of their own pockets for water on top of paying property tax. However, the PMC is simply ignoring this issue. Only futile assurances are given every time. No concrete action is taken to start every day’s water supply. Undri has been a part of PMC jurisdiction for several years now and still, people are struggling with the everyday necessity of water. The PMC simply takes humongous property taxes from us & does nothing.”
Undri residents have been facing a PMC water shortage for the past 10 years but the civic authorities have not made any effort to provide a basic facility of water supply to the area.
Kashinath Gangurde, Executive Engineer, PMC Undri Division, said, “Currently, all the major wells are dry. Even though major dams providing water supply to Pune city are full, water lines are not developed in Undri for dam water to be made accessible. In the current DPR Plan, there is no provision of budget & planning of establishing water lines. Hence, the only option as of now is increasing the number of water tankers for every day water supply.”
Abhijeet Deshpande, a resident of Nyati Esteban, Undri said “I have been living in Undri for 2 years now. Since then we have only been buying water tankers from private water tankers. PMC does not provide us any water supply. We have been paying high taxes but there has been no service from PMC yet. We have made several complaints, requests, etc. to PMC but so far nothing has happened.”
Asif P, a resident of Park Majestique, Undri, said “A lot of our society maintenance cost goes towards the purchase of private water tankers and we don’t even know how long we’ll be able to run on water tankers. PMC has failed to provide us with water connections even when we are in the civic jurisdiction.”
