PANVEL, Nov. 8 -- Even as Diwali preparations are underway, residents across Kharghar and Taloja are grappling with erratic water supply, low pressure and mounting expenditure on private tankers. In several high-rise housing societies, households receive water for barely 10 to 20 minutes a day, leaving residents struggling to manage basic needs and festive cleaning. The situation is particularly acute at Bageshree Society in Sector 40, a Cidco affordable housing complex comprising 23 buildings and over 10,000 residents. The society requires around 14,00,000 litres of water daily, but residents claim it receives less than half. Priya Patil, who moved here in 2021, said the shortage had steadily worsened. "Our first year was all right but after that, every festival was affected," she said. "There was not a single drop this Dussehra, and now the struggle is pre-Diwali cleaning. We can buy drinking water but can't afford to purchase the quantity needed for household chores." The water shortage was very hard on residents' pockets, with monthly tanker bills running into lakhs, said Shahjehan Chougule, a resident of the 163-apartment Arihant Anaya in Sector 35. Residents reportedly require four to five tankers daily, at around Rs.2,700 each. "We get water for barely 20 minutes a day," said resident Vijay Thorat. The shortage comes amid a wider supply-demand gap in Cidco-administered areas. Cidco receives around 311 million litres per day (MLD) against an estimated requirement of 361 MLD. It has imposed a 15% water cut and a 24-hour shutdown once a week in designated nodes. The pressure on Kharghar has also increased following a reduction in NMMC's allocation to Cidco for the node from 20 MLD to eight MLD. The combined allocation for Kharghar, Taloja and Kamothe has declined from 57 MLD to 40 MLD. Cidco claimed that it had deployed 14 tankers across Kharghar and Taloja, making around 140 trips daily. The authority has also prohibited builders from using tanker-supplied water for construction. Cidco water supply department executive engineer Manoj Suryavanshi said that MIDC had suspended the water cut during Diwali. "We are trying to provide adequate water to residents, including by redirecting supplies from areas where the 24-hour shutdown was implemented to Kharghar and Taloja," he said....