Pune: The once-a-week water cut is beginning to hit the city’s laundry business hard, forcing operators to reduce wash loads, raise prices and, in some cases, stop accepting clothes altogether.“We are facing a major water shortage and have temporarily stopped taking clothes for wash,” Pratik Rajguru of A to Z Quick Laundry in Dhanori said. “A 15kg wash cycle requires 7-8 litres of water, while dry cleaning uses only a fraction of that,” he said.With water supply dropping, several laundries are turning to private tankers, pushing up operating costs. Some operators said a price hike was inevitable. “We may increase charges per piece because water procurement costs have gone up,” a laundry owner in the NIBM area said.A medium-sized laundry typically consumes 800-1,000 litres of water a day, depending on machine capacity, daily loads and the services offered. Consumers are already feeling the impact. “I now pay Rs 3-5 extra per item for washing and dry cleaning,” Hadapsar resident Dhara Sanghvi, who regularly sends bed sheets and bulky garments to the laundry, said.Some operators have sharply restricted services to conserve water. “We are only accepting blankets, sarees and high-value items,” Tulsiraj Kanodia of White Star Dry Cleaner in Vishrantwadi said. “We have had to turn customers away for now,” he added.Others are managing, but only just. “We depend on our own well, but water levels are low this year. Lower order volumes have helped us cope so far,” the owner of PoshWash Laundry in Kothrud said.Shashank Dinkar, who runs Rapid clean laundry at Pratik Nagar said, “We have a lot of hostel students, bachelors who give clothes for wash. We offer wash per kg. We are unable to service orders on a daily basis so there is a big delay in deliveries. We are running wash cycles once in two days.”Prakash tambe, who runs Sai laundry at Hadapsar said, “There are electriciy and water issues so we have increased prices. We are now charging Rs 80 per kg. It was Rs 60 per kg earlier. We are running wash cycles only 2-3 times a week whenever there is water availability.”The shortage is creating a difficult balancing act for laundry businesses — keep operations running, manage rising costs and avoid disappointing customers. To conserve water, many have cut down the number of wash cycles each day, resulting in longer turnaround times. “Clothes are taking more than a week to return from the laundry. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep track of what I have given and what I have received,” Wanowrie resident Sania Singh said.
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