Pune’s Undri-Pisoli belt is showing how rapid housing growth can outpace the civic systems meant to support it. Borewells are drying up, tanker requirements are rising across several housing societies and the cost of securing basic water is increasing, while many residents say they have paid civic taxes, including a water levy, for years without receiving a reliable Pune Municipal Corporation supply.
The immediate concern is the coming summer, but the evidence in the area points to a longer-running planning and service-delivery problem. At Nyati Chesterfield in Undri, daily tanker dependence has increased from eight to 12. Residents said they pay Rs 800 per tanker and have been awaiting a civic water connection despite paying PMC charges for more than nine years. Resident Sunil Aiyer said consumption had increased during the dry weather and that the society remained entirely dependent on tankers.
The pressure is not confined to one project. Fortune Prospero Housing Society in Kondhwa Budruk, with 188 flats, now requires 10 to 12 tankers a day, roughly twice its earlier requirement. Society president Firoz Shaikh said PMC water was arriving only three or four times a week. According to him, a recent shortage was severe enough for the society to arrange tankers even for drinking water.
That shift from supplementary supply to near-total dependence is important. Tankers are often treated as a temporary response to interruptions, but in these societies they have become part of the regular water system. The arrangement transfers the operational and financial burden of unreliable civic infrastructure to residents and housing societies, while also leaving supply dependent on tanker availability, local groundwater conditions and changing prices.
The financial cost is already substantial. Tanvi Shaikh, a resident of Fortune Prospero, said the society’s monthly tanker expenditure had reached nearly Rs 1.5 lakh. At Nyati Windchimes in Undri Hilltop, tanker requirements stand at around 16 a day and are expected by residents to reach 22 during the peak summer months. Tanker rates there have risen from Rs 600 to Rs 800, according to resident Sunil Koloti.
In Pisoli, Sai Shraddha Bungalow Society, which has 130 bungalows, consumes about 40 tankers a day. A society office bearer, Tahseen Teerandaz, said demand could increase by another 10 to 15 tankers as groundwater levels fall. These figures show that the crisis is not simply an issue of intermittent municipal pressure inside individual buildings. It is affecting multiple communities across Undri, Undri Hillside, Pisoli and adjoining areas at the same time.
### A civic connection that does not yet mean reliable service
The experience of Dorabjee Paradise Bungalow Society on NIBM Road Annexe illustrates a second problem: being connected to the civic network does not necessarily guarantee dependable access. Water supply began months after three overhead tanks were inaugurated earlier in the year, but residents said the promised round-the-clock service existed only on paper.
Society secretary Kishor Baligar said water arrived for barely two hours a day. A Thursday water cut further disrupted supply, while low pressure continued the following day. Residents feared that they could again be pushed towards tankers, which they said might cost as much as Rs 1,000 each.
This distinction between infrastructure creation and functional service is central to the Undri-Pisoli problem. A tank, pipeline or connection may be recorded as completed, but residents experience the system through frequency, duration, pressure and predictability. If those operating conditions remain inadequate, formal connection alone does not remove tanker dependence.
The report does not establish the precise reasons for every interruption or quantify the total number of affected households across the wider area. Residents have, however, attributed some supply disruptions to pipeline work, while the PMC commissioner has said that the development plan for Undri-Pisoli is being finalised and will require a few more months for approval. The available evidence therefore connects the water shortage to both immediate network constraints and a broader planning process that is still incomplete.
### Growth without matching service capacity
Undri and Pisoli’s housing societies represent a form of urban expansion in which residential construction has created concentrated demand for essential services. The societies cited in the report range from apartment complexes to bungalow communities, and their tanker requirements run from 10 or 12 a day to approximately 40. That variation reflects differences in population, housing form and existing connections, but it also demonstrates the scale at which private arrangements are compensating for gaps in public supply.
The most revealing feature is the number of years over which the problem has persisted. Residents at Nyati Chesterfield said they had paid PMC charges, including the water levy, for more than nine years without receiving a civic connection. At Dorabjee Paradise, residents said they had heard assurances for years even after physical infrastructure was introduced. The commissioner’s statement that the development plan is still being finalised indicates that the institutional framework for the area’s future growth remains under process while residents are already facing service shortages.
A development plan can help determine the infrastructure needed for an expanding urban area, but the report makes clear that residents are dealing with present-day operational needs: drinking water, daily household use, adequate pressure and predictable schedules. The gap between planning timelines and lived requirements is widening as borewells dry up and tanker costs rise.
### The hidden cost of tanker-based urbanisation
Tanker dependence makes water a recurring private expense for residents who may already be paying home-loan instalments, maintenance charges and civic taxes. The reported monthly bill of nearly Rs 1.5 lakh at one society shows how the cost is collectively absorbed through housing maintenance budgets. At the household level, that cost is less visible, but it remains part of the price of living in an area where public supply is unreliable.
The arrangement also creates unequal exposure. Societies with larger financial reserves may be able to purchase more tankers or maintain storage capacity, while smaller communities and individual households may have fewer options. The supplied report does not provide a comparison of tanker access or costs between different income groups, so the distributional impact cannot be measured here. It does establish, however, that residents are paying substantial sums for a service they expected the civic network to provide.
Groundwater decline adds another layer of vulnerability. Borewells have already dried up in parts of Undri and Pisoli, and residents expect demand to increase during summer. This means the tanker system is being used precisely as the local backup source becomes less dependable. Without a reliable public network, each society is left to manage a common urban resource problem through individual procurement.
The larger urban question is therefore not only whether Pune has enough water at a citywide level. It is whether new and expanding neighbourhoods are being integrated into a functioning distribution system before residential occupation increases demand. It is also whether civic taxation, network expansion, storage infrastructure and development approvals are being coordinated closely enough to prevent private tanker dependence from becoming the default model.
For now, the evidence confirms a worsening service crisis across several Undri-Pisoli societies, rising tanker costs and continuing uncertainty over reliable PMC supply. The immediate milestones are the finalisation and approval of the area’s development plan, the functioning of recently installed infrastructure and the ability of the civic network to provide regular duration and pressure. Until those steps produce dependable service, residents will continue to measure urban growth not by the number of homes built, but by the number of tankers required to keep them running.
