The Sewage Plant Nobody in Your Society Thinks About Is About to Send You a Bill

In Pune's southern and eastern suburbs, alternate-day municipal supply pushed societies onto private tankers. Tanker operators raised rates by 30 to 60 percent within weeks, citing dry borewells, diesel costs and longer queues at filling points. A 10,000-litre tanker that cost Rs 800 to Rs 1,000 earlier in the year was reported at Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,500 depending on the area, and drinking-water tankers touched Rs 3,000 in places like Wakad and Balewadi.

The reported society numbers are large. Sun Exotica in Yewalewadi spent close to Rs 7.5 lakh on tankers between March and June, running about three tankers a day. Venkatesh Puram in Ambegaon had never needed tankers before, and its monthly maintenance bill rose by close to Rs 1 lakh once it needed three tankers every two days. Some societies have fixed watering hours and shut swimming pools just to control the spend.

Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has already disconnected water supply to 24 housing societies over non-functional STPs. An Environment Department inspection found that of 494 private STPs in the city, with a combined capacity of 106 MLD, 125 plants accounting for 23 MLD were not working.

PCMC has also proposed a new charge for large societies and projects: Rs 500 per residential unit and Rs 10,000 per sewerage connection, for any project that sends excess treated wastewater into the municipal network instead of reusing it. The state rule requires STPs to reuse at least 50 percent of treated water, but PCMC's own data puts actual reuse by private societies closer to 30 percent. That gap is what the charge targets.

The Chikhali-Moshi-Charholi Housing Society Federation has opposed the proposal. It argues that developers who installed undersized or poor STPs should not be allowed to pass that cost to residents years later. Whatever happens to this proposal, the direction is clear. Civic bodies are moving from tolerating weak STP compliance to pricing and penalising it, through disconnection, NOC conditions and now direct charges.

Evershine Cosmic Co-operative Housing Society in Andheri West, a 186-flat building, has run its own sewage treatment since 2016 using a Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor. It recycles roughly 1.24 lakh litres of water a day for gardens, toilet flushing and washing common areas.

The society still needs about three 20,000-litre tankers a day, close to Rs 2 lakh a month, for what recycled water cannot cover. Its secretary estimates that without the plant the shortfall would run past 60 percent of total demand, with much higher tanker costs on top.

The plant is not free. It cost roughly Rs 6 lakh to set up, about Rs 8 lakh a year to maintain, plus electricity for pumps that run round the clock, and the treatment chemicals wear out tap fittings. But this is a known, budgeted cost. A tanker bill that can move 60 percent in a single season is not.

Stop treating the STP as something the builder installed and the facility manager quietly keeps running. Start with these:

• Ask your facility manager or AMC vendor for the plant's actual reuse percentage, and compare it honestly with the 50 percent benchmark regulators are enforcing.
• Find out whether your society crosses the built-up area threshold that makes STP operation mandatory in your city, and check what your local body requires.
• Keep the Consent to Operate and the AMC papers in a folder the committee controls, not with whoever handled the handover from the builder.
• Record daily or weekly readings of treated water produced and reused, so you can show the numbers if a notice arrives.
• Make STP maintenance its own budget line instead of burying it under repairs.

STP running costs are real money and should be visible. Keep AMC fees, electricity for the plant, chemicals and replacement parts under a separate expense head, so that the General Body can see what the plant costs and what tanker spend it avoids. If a civic charge or penalty ever arrives, you will also want a clean record of what was paid and why.

None of this needs the state government or your municipal corporation to force the issue. Societies that get ahead of reuse targets now will negotiate from strength when the next charge proposal or water cut notice reaches the secretary's desk, and they will be less exposed the next time the monsoon runs short.