Water consumption of Nashik city up by 14 MLD in 15 days

Nashik: The city's daily water consumption has increased by 14 million litres per day (MLD) over the last 15-20 owing to the rise in mercury levels.The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has enhanced its water supply from 600 MLD on Feb 28 to 614 MLD in March. In the past one year, Nashik's overall daily water requirement has grown from 541 MLD (Feb 2025) to 600 MLD (Feb 2026), reflecting the city's expanding population.In Feb, the maximum temperature of Nashik city was recorded at 31.7°C on Feb 28 and had increased gradually up to 38.5°C on March 12. However, the city's maximum temperature has continued to drop in the last eight days due to a change in weather pattern.Parts of Nashik district experienced heavy rainfall on March 18 and 19 which led to a drop in the maximum temperature of the city to 32°C as on March 21.An NMC official, while talking to TOI, said water consumption of the city increases daily by 15–20 MLD during the summer owing to the rise in demand. "This year too, there has been a rise of around 14 MLD in water consumption during the first fortnight of March," the official said.The NMC has a reservation of 6,400 mcft of water in three dams for the reservation period between Oct 15 last year and July 31 this year. This includes 4,600 mcft in Gangapur dam, 1,500 mcft in Mukane dam and 300 mcft in Darna dam.The civic body said they have used 4,910 mcft of water so far from the dams, while they still have a remaining reservation quota of 1,490 mcft.Gangapur dam is the major source of water for the city as it caters to 80% of the requirement. The city gets the remaining 20% from Mukane and Darna dams.Recently, the NMC increased the number of water tankers in the city from 13 to 25 tankers per day across all six divisions in order to provide water to residents who get inadequate supply through taps.