“This is the first time that we are distributing water purifying chemicals to the Alandi residents. We never had to do this even during the monsoon,” said Sanjeev Ohol, CEO of AMC.

AMC's water supply is solely dependent on the Indrayani river. The town has a residing population of about 35,000. Besides, the daily floating population in Alandi is 20,000 in the forms of pilgrims. To cater to the needs of the population, the municipality supplies 35 lakh litres of water on a daily basis. Alandi municipality has a water treatment plant to purify the Indrayani water. Even though no casualty or serious cases have been recorded so far due to that badly polluted water, the likelihood of such a thing happening is quite high. Dr S A Deshmukh, medical superintendent of the government rural hospital said, “There has been over 30 per cent rise in the number of patients who are suffering from vomiting, headaches and loose motions.”

“The industries in the PCMC area have always been releasing chemicals and other effluents into the river. But last month, we started facing the problem more acutely. The water near the treatment plant is reddish. Even after treating the water, the turbidness remain. We also started receiving complaints from the local people about the bad water,” said D B Sontakke, water supply head of the AMC. Since the Alandi municipality does not have any expertise, the officials rushed to the Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran (MJP) and district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB).