At a time when Odisha observed the World Water Day on Thursday, the ominous fact still staring at the State is a whopping 68 lakh people in the State can’t have access to water of even the bare minimum norm of 40 litres per capita per day (lPCD). So, this summer, nearly 19 per cent of State population would have to bear the water scarcity acutely.
And when it comes to safe drinking water via pipelines, Odisha looks all set to miss the deadline of the year 2022 as by then the nation has set the goal of ensuring piped water supply to almost 90 per cent of rural households. The reason: Only around 4 per cent rural households or mere 3lakh households were provided with piped water supply till February end.
Why piped water supply is essential because out of nearly 9.7 lakh rural people affected with underground water contamination, the disconcerting fact is a whopping 57 per cent or over 5.6lakh of such population has no access to piped water supply.
Their dire distress is simply unimaginable as they have no water to drink and they virtually depend on tanker water supply, which is a most corrupt ridden service in State. Of the 9.7 lakh rural people, nearly a lakh are tribal. Jajpur district in Odisha has the largest habitations that are affected by water quality, followed by Puri, Koraput, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Bhadrak and Kendrapada.
Besides the unforeseen water crisis faced by the populace there, among the 68lakh water-stressed people in the State who have no access to even 40 lPCD minimum norm, a maximum of around 11 lakh belong to Ganjam district, followed by Jajpur (6.8lakh), Mayurbhanj (5.5l), Cuttack (4.3l), Balangir (3.8l), Dhenkanal (3.1l), State headquarters Khurda (3l),Baleswar (2.9l), Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapada (2.4l each).
As per the recent review meeting held in Secretariat, the data emerged out is in the fiscal year 2017-18, the actual achievement in covering habitations under fully (40lPCD) and partially/quality affected habitations have been poor. As against the target set by the State Government to cover 9,300 habitations, only 1,454 could have been achieved till January end 2018.
It was also noted that last fiscal, the target was missed by around 1100 habitations. Moreover, it was observed that a high of around 57 per cent population in the State has no access to piped water supply till date.
When Odisha has over 1.5 lakh habitations, data reveal that the number of habitations getting 40 lPCD or more is numbered at around 1.38lakh, and total habitations receiving less than 40 lPCD totalled to around 16,276. Moreover, when over 11, 530 habitations with less than 40 lPCD were to be taken up to ensure an over 40 lPCD, the actual achievement has been around 650 in 2017-18.