The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is set to expand its sewage treatment capacity by 396 million liters per day (MLD) with the completion of 11 new sewage treatment plants (STPs) by June. This initiative is part of the civic body’s effort to secure a 24 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) water allocation from the irrigation department. Currently, PMC treats approximately 600MLD of the total 980MLD sewage generated in the city, which includes 883MLD from the old city and 97MLD from the newly merged areas. With the new STPs operational, the treatment capacity will increase to around 1,000MLD. The city’s annual water quota is officially 17TMC, including supply from the Bhama Askhed dam. However, PMC currently draws around 21TMC and seeks to increase this to 24TMC to meet growing demand from its population of 6.5–7 million, including those in the merged areas. To address pollution in the Mula and Mutha rivers, PMC partnered with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for funding under the Mula-Mutha River Pollution Abatement Project. The project, announced in 2015, aims to tackle untreated wastewater discharge — a major contributor to the rivers being categorized as “priority 1” by the Central Pollution Control Board. Construction work on 10 of the 11 planned STPs is underway, with the majority of tasks nearing completion. This effort is critical as PMC faces increasing scrutiny from the irrigation department to justify its additional water demand and improve water recycling efficiency. The civic body supplies water to over 1.25 million properties, with approximately 4.5 lakh authorized connections and an equal number of unauthorized ones. PMC’s actions aim to balance its water needs while addressing key environmental concerns.