Pune village gives 20-litre distilled water for Rs 5

PUNE: A one litre bottle of distilled water will cost you anything between Rs 15 to Rs 20. But, Medankarwadi village near the industrial town of Chakan in Pune district distributes 20-litre distilled water for Rs 5.

As thousands of villagers were not getting pure water due to various reasons in the village for last few months, the grampanchyat recently set up three water ATMs which have capacity to dispense around thousands of litres of safe water daily.

Since the panchyat will provide the water and electricity to run the ATMs, the villagers will have to pay a nominal rate of Rs 25 paise per litre.

"Population of the village has increased rapidly due to industrialization of the village and surrounding areas in the last one decade. It has now reached to about 50,000. Big housing societies too have come up in here. In the past few months, several villagers were complaining about safe drinking water. Therefore, we set up three ATMs where people now will get distilled water,” Sarpanch Priyanka Medankar told TOI on Wednesday.

She said, more ATMs will be set up at various locations in the village in the coming months. “We need to set up at least three more such ATMs to cater to the drinking water requirement of the villagers," she added.