The quality of drinking water has always been a low priority issue for the rural community in developing countries like India. The poor attention accorded by the government as well as consumers towards the quality of drinking water leads to major health problems for humanity. To overcome this problem it is necessary to monitor and evaluate the quality of drinking water in rural areas on a regular basis and make the community aware of its consequences. This paper presents the ground realities of some important physical, chemical and biological quality parameters of 1728 drinking water samples drawn from both private and community water supplies from 216 villages of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India through a cross sectional study during 2012. The selective water quality parameters which affect the health of the humanbeing were evaluated like Temperature, pH, Turbidity, Hardness, Iron, Fluoride, Nitrate, Chloride and Bacteria. The results indicate that a total of 41% water samples were unfit for consumption for varied reasons from the study area. Hardness was the major problem followed by chloride, bacteria and turbidity in the drinking water, which may lead to various health problems.