Odisha in the grip of severe water crisis

Because of the dearth of drinking water, villagers are forced to turn to unhygienic sources.

With the summer approaching and the scarcity of drinking water hitting the interiors of Odisha, the State government has admitted that piped water supply projects in around 2,000 villages and small habitations have been lying defunct.

The State has also identified as many as 1,345 non-repairable projects. Water supply projects have been set up in 37,689 out of 1,56,468 villages and habitations. Apart from this, 4,15,558 tubewells and sanitary wells cater to the villagers’ needs.

But, thanks to frequent power outages during the summer, water projects become ineffective. Consequently, villagers turn to unhygienic sources of drinking water.

Pending monthly power bills are among the major reasons behind these projects being non-operational, besides damaged transformers and metres, and low voltage. Although the State government had directed power distribution companies not to discontinue power supply to water projects in case of unpaid dues, the order is not followed in most places.

With the drinking water crisis worsening, residents of over 20 villages in Khariar block of Nuapada district have resorted to digging percolation pits on the Sundar riverbed. The small river in Nuapada district originates from Sunabeda plateau and flows through the Komna and Khariar blocks.

Sand mining

Some villagers, in fact, walk up to 3km to get drinking water from the riverbed. The unbridled sand extraction has further hit the riverbed’s water retention capacity. The scene is similar in districts of Bolangir, Sambalpur, Kalahandi, Subarnapur and Sundargarh.

But it is not just the villagers who face a crisis. The urban population, especially those in the slums, is also not immune to the problem. “Although water scarcity has forced people to dig percolation pits on the riverbeds, riparian communities still collect water by scooping sand out. In recent times, industries and the government’s water supply agencies have created water storage on the riverbeds in anticipation of the scarcity,” said Ranjan Panda, convenor of Water Initiative of Odisha.

Water storage on a riverbed is done by digging a pit into which the water contained in sand percolates. It is then lifted using pumps.

“The competition over storing water has already taken away the poor man’s access to water,” said Mr. Panda.

 

The Sambalpur district administration, meanwhile, has started digging sanitary wells on a large scale under the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme.