PUNE: Taps will run on Thursday. Whether they will in May is a different question.
The Pune Municipal Corporation's water supply department has cancelled the weekly shutdown scheduled for November 12. Supply across the city will follow the usual schedule, the second consecutive week without a cut.
The PMC had shut down supply every Thursday from October 15, after the state government directed civic bodies to implement a minimum 10% water cut.
The November 5 cut was dropped after mayor Manjusha Nagpure and Standing Committee chairman Shrinath Bhimale intervened, and the relief has now been extended by another Thursday to see residents through Diwali.
The arithmetic behind the decision is the part that worries engineers. A Water Resources Department report dated November 11 puts live storage in the Pune revenue region's major, medium and minor projects at 11,632.89 MCM against a designed capacity of 15,366.09 MCM. That is 75.70%. On the same date last year it was 92.70%.
For the city itself, the numbers are tighter. The PMC has been allocated about 13 TMC for 2026-27 against an estimated requirement of 21 TMC. Last year it received 16 TMC, so the allocation is 3 TMC short of that too.
Of the 13 TMC, roughly 6.35 TMC has already been drawn. That leaves 6.65 TMC to last until June 30, 2027 — through the whole of winter and the summer peak.
The department's own reading is that the region entered this year with a deficit it has not recovered from. Pune is not alone in it. In Nashik district, the irrigation department has said dam water will go first to drinking supply and industry, and that farmers must apply to it for irrigation releases, with the department committed to stretching supplies to August 31, 2027.
What the PMC does about the next Thursday has not been announced. The decision will land in the first week after Diwali, when the festival demand ends and the summer planning begins in earnest.