Ambil Odha: Pune’s Forgotten Stream, Now a Deadly Drain

₹200 Crore Delay. 21 Lives Lost. Who Killed Ambil Odha?

Scientific studies warned us in 2013. The city drowned in 2019. The funds are still missing in 2025. Encroachments, corruption, and ignored warnings led Pune into a flood trap.

Every monsoon, Ambil Odha turns roads into rivers and homes into flood zones. Once a natural stream feeding the Mutha River, it is now a choked drain. But it wasn’t just water that flooded Ambil Odha in 2019, it was decades of neglect, unplanned growth, and political apathy. Families lost loved ones. Roads became rivers. Six years later, promises remain on paper, and the ₹200 crore plan lies untouched. The stream hasn’t changed. The stream hasn’t changed. How many more warnings does Pune need before it listens?

Background: From Lifeline to Liability

Ambil Odha was once a natural stream that carried fresh rainwater into Pune’s Mutha River system. It helped recharge groundwater, supported local biodiversity, and acted as a natural buffer during heavy rains.

But as Pune grew from 138 sq. km in 1987 to over 518 sq. km today, the city expanded around and over the Odha. Roads, buildings, and parking lots replaced open soil and green spaces. Natural slopes were flattened. Stormwater paths were blocked.

In 2013, geographer Dr. Gabale warned that this unchecked growth had turned the Odha’s watershed into a flood trap. His PhD thesis identified 64 specific locations vulnerable to flooding.

Those warnings were tragically validated in 2019, when intense rains turned Ambil Odha into a raging flood channel. 21 people lost their lives, and properties were damaged across areas like Sahakarnagar, Bibwewadi, and Sinhagad Road. Every one of the 64 sites marked in Gabale’s study was affected.

Following the disaster, the state government approved a ₹200 crore flood control project, pushed forward by then Union Minister Murlidhar Mohol. The plan involved:

• Building protective retaining walls along the Odha
• Reinforcing culverts
• Creating buffer spaces near Katraj Lake
• Conducting regular silt removal and drainage upgrades

But in 2025, six years later, not a single rupee of that sanctioned fund has been released. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) cancelled tenders due to a lack of funds, and the monsoon season returns, as threatening as ever.

“Was the ₹200 crore announcement just an election gimmick?” asked former corporator Ashwini Kadam, pointing to alleged political favoritism in the awarding of tenders.

As Pune races to modernize under Smart City missions, its most basic infrastructure natural water channels, remains ignored, buried, and dangerously broken.

Root Causes: How the City Designed Its Disaster

The Ambil Odha crisis isn’t just a natural disaster, it’s a man-made one. And it didn’t happen overnight.

1. Construction Without Consultation

Across Pune, critical infrastructure roads, buildings, and even RERA-approved projects were planned without consulting civil engineers or environmental studies. In 90% of cases, contractors were trusted blindly, and technical standards were either compromised or skipped altogether.

“Contractor work was often approved without proper checks. Natural soil was replaced with tiles and paver blocks, so rainwater couldn’t soak into the ground. It just collected on the surface and caused flooding.”— Suraj Bhosale, Senior Executive Engineer

2. Drainage Designed to Fail

Without proper slope planning or stormwater maps, new roads and colonies were laid over natural drainage paths. Existing nullahs were ignored, and rainwater started pooling on roads and into homes.
Even worse, no seasonal maintenance, summer, monsoon, or winter, was enforced.

“The government must prioritise this project before the monsoon intensifies. People living near water bodies are gripped by fear every time it rains,” said Rupesh Adsul, a local resident from Sahakar Nagar.

3. Ignored Stormwater Management

In most building plans, stormwater systems were absent or treated as an afterthought. Rainwater harvesting, though cost-effective, was rarely implemented. The result: stormwater runs over the land, not into it, overwhelming roads and drains.

“Most people cover their parking areas with tiles or concrete, so rainwater can’t seep into the ground. It just flows onto the streets. On top of that, there’s no proper system or technology used during construction. Stormwater management is completely ignored, and that’s why the whole drainage system fails.”—

Suraj Bhosale,Senior Executive Engineer

4. Loss of Vegetation = Rise in Risk

Satellite imagery from 1991 to 2010 shows a 6% rise in settlements and a decline in barren and green zones. Impervious surfaces increased. Vegetation, which helps absorb and slow water, decreased, accelerating erosion and runoff. (Source –iosrjournal)

This means:

• More buildings, fewer open spaces
• Less soil to absorb water, more hard surfaces to speed it up
• Fewer trees, more erosion
• Smaller water bodies, even though rains are getting heavier

“Every raindrop now runs faster, collects quicker, and floods deeper.”

Modern tools like GIS (Geographic Information Systems) can help map where water should flow and where to build safely.
But these tools are often ignored or sidelined in urban planning especially when decisions are driven by profit, not long-term safety.

5. Maps That Forgot the Streams

Urban planners erased natural nullahs from development maps. In many cases, land was sanctioned for construction on top of streams. As Smart City projects pushed for roads and flyovers, the drainage below was left forgotten or sealed under concrete.

6. Citizens Ignorant — but Also Trapped
   

It’s easy to blame the government, but the truth is more complex; residents also play a role, sometimes knowingly, sometimes because they have no choice.

In densely packed areas like Dandekar Pul Vasahat, homes were built close together with no space for proper drainage systems. There was no planning, no stormwater management, and no room for it, either.

• In many homes, every bit of open land is covered with concrete or tiles, so rainwater has nowhere to soak into the ground.

• Rainwater harvesting is almost unheard of, even though it’s simple and cost-effective.

• And most importantly, stormwater management is never part of local construction conversations — not among citizens, and not among contractors.

In short: many communities are living in flood-prone zones with no tools, no space, and no awareness, and paying the price every monsoon.

The Scientific Lens – What the Land Has Been Trying to Tell Us

The story of Ambil Odha isn’t just told through floods and headlines. It’s also hidden in the shape of the land, the flow of water, and even in satellite photos.

The 5th-order drainage basin, as identified in a 2013 study by Hajam et al., showed early warning signs including poor water absorption, delayed runoff, and fragile terrain. These natural characteristics made the Ambil Odha basin highly vulnerable to flooding, even before construction and urbanization worsened the problem.

🔍 What the Scientists Found

• The land can’t absorb water well:
  The soil and rocks here don’t allow much water to soak in. That means rain runs across the surface instead of seeping underground, which leads to waterlogging.
• The area is shaped like a long funnel:
  Because the stream’s basin is long and narrow, water doesn’t flood right away. But once it builds up and has nowhere to go, it floods fast and hard.
• The land is fragile:
  The terrain is easily damaged by construction. When buildings or roads cut into the land, it becomes unstable and more prone to flooding.
• The soil is packed too tightly:
  It’s made of fine-grained rock with low permeability. That means even without concrete, water would still struggle to sink in, and the city has made it worse by covering everything in cement and tiles.

The Human Story – What the People Are Saying

In some parts of Pune, the rain doesn’t bring relief, it brings panic. For families living near Ambil Odha, each monsoon turns into a countdown to disaster. From Sahakarnagar to Dandekar Pool, they’ve seen water pour into homes, erase roads, and steal lives.

Krushna Bane, a former resident of the Dandekar Pool area, remembers it all too clearly:

“During every monsoon, the condition became unbearable. You can’t live like that, flooded every year. After the repeated incidents, our family had to move to Dhayari. The government always promised proper drainage, even rehabilitation, but nothing ever happened.”

His story is not unique as so many families left the area after facing loss, damage, and continued silence from authorities.

Meanwhile, civil engineer Suraj Bhosale, who works with global companies like Skoda and JCB, points to the clear gap between industrial and urban infrastructure:

“These companies follow strict German-style rainwater management. I’ve never seen waterlogging at their plants. Why can’t our city planners learn from that?”

What’s Being Done (or Not)?

After the 2019 floods, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) promised action. A ₹200 crore flood mitigation project was announced, pushed by Union Minister Murlidhar Mohol and approved by the state government. The plan included:

• Retaining walls along the length of Ambil Odha to prevent overflow
• Reinforcing culverts to manage heavy water flow
• Buffer zones around Katraj Lake to hold excess rainwater
• Desilting and seasonal maintenance of the Odha and connected drains

It sounded promising on paper.

But by 2025, six years later, not a single major intervention had been completed.

Why?

Because the ₹200 crore fund was never released.

Despite cabinet approval, bureaucratic delays and political infighting stalled the money flow. The PMC, unable to proceed, cancelled all related tenders, leaving the project in limbo just as another monsoon approached.

Former corporator Ashwini Kadam (NCP-SP) believes the project was doomed by political interference. She has publicly questioned the timing of the fund announcement, calling it “more of an election tactic than a real solution”, and claims that internal disputes over contractor selection blocked the fund disbursal. Insiders claim that contractor politics, departmental friction, and lack of urgency from the state continue to delay the project. On the ground, residents see no machines, no walls, no signs of protection, just the same vulnerable stream.

The Ambil Odha project now joins a long list of civic promises in Pune that collapsed under their weight.

Conclusion – What Will It Take for Pune to Listen?

Ambil Odha is not just a stream. It’s a mirror reflecting everything that’s broken in Pune’s urban system: ignored science, hollow promises, politicized planning, and a public that still believes rain is someone else’s problem.

The ₹200 crore flood control plan remains frozen. The stream, buried under roads and forgotten maps, continues to threaten life and property with every monsoon. Experts like Dr. Gabale and Suraj Bhosale have shown that the solutions exist. GIS tools, rainwater harvesting, and stormwater management systems work when they’re used.

But Pune doesn’t just need bigger drains or more cement. What it needs is a change in how the city respects its rivers, listens to its engineers, and cares for its people. Until that happens, Ambil Odha will keep coming back not as a natural disaster, but as a warning of how badly we’ve handled things.

Floods don’t come without warning in Pune — they come unread.

(References- India water portal, Research gate, HT)