Water crisis looks acute this summer in Odisha as a regular Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) analysis in the State reveals a steep fall in the water table in a whopping three-fifths of the wells in the pre-monsoon period of year 2016 with the water level found below the decadal mean level of 2006-2015.
And when over 61 lakh rural population in the State have no access to even the minimum norm of 40 litre per day round the season, the fall in the water level would thus nudge as many as around 1 crore rural populace to go through an acute water scarcity this gruelling summer, reveals the data available with Rural Development Department.
Moreover, data accessed by The Pioneer reveal that the expenditure under the rural drinking water flagship scheme of NRDWP (National Rural Drinking Water Programme) in 2016-17 has been the poorest compared to the previous years.
By the end of January 2017, only around 40 per cent of the amount of Rs97 crore released by the Centre under the NRDWP was spent in the State to augment drinking water potential in rural areas. In comparison, the expenditure during the above mentioned period in year 2015-16 was around a whopping 85 per cent.
The result: When the year 2015-16 saw sinking of over 40,739 hand pumps in the State, till mid-March only around 7,761 hand pumps were sunk in 2016-17, which is the lowest-ever achievement in the last half decade.
Also, when the target set under the NRDWP in 2016-17 was to cover around 9,300 habitations, the achievement till February-end was only around 7,010. What needs to remind here is a whopping 25,684 habitations in the State with a population of over 51 lakh live in a parched condition even in the post-monsoon (autumn and winter) season.
The State’s tribals-dominated habitations are set to bear the brunt most as nearly 17 per cent of such habitations live in acute water crisis throughout the year, reveals the accessed data.
However, highly-placed sources in the Rural Development Department blame this poor performance to the panchayat polls that put an embargo on sanctioning of new NRDWP projects as hand pumps are ideally sunk during the period of December-March in any financial year.
Significantly, the scenario in the urban Odisha doesn’t look any enthusing either as a whopping over 120 water supply projects undertaken during the period 2015-17 is yet to see completion. An estimate by the Urban Development Department reveals that around 10 lakh population in urban areas bears the water crunch during summer.
According to water experts, to tide over the recurring water crisis, Odisha should not only make efforts to augment the falling water table by reviving water bodies but also go for bringing up more irrigation projects to harvest the rainwater and recharge the water table.