About 96.3 per cent of households in rural areas in the State have not been provided drinking water through supply pipes by now.
This was revealed from the information provided by Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Minister Pradeep Maharathy in the State Assembly in response to a question of BJP MlA Dilip Ray on Tuesday.
According to the data, a total of 81,49,102 families, comprising 3,58,96,924 people, are currently living in rural areas in the State. Of these, only 3,02,048 households have been connected with piped drinking water supply projects. This means only 3.70 per cent of rural households are getting drinking water though supply pipes.
In response to another question of Ray, the Minister informed that there are a total of 1,57,773 villages/hamlets under 6,801 gram panchayats spread over 30 districts and, of them, only 37,711 villages have been provided drinking water through supply pipes. Drinking water would be supplied to the rest 1,20,062 villages/hamlets in a phased manner depending of funds approval of the Government. According to the data, 7,789 of 10,112 villages in Sundargarh district have not been provided piped drinking water.
The Minister informed that a total of 40,88,941 households have toilets by now and targets have been set to provide toilets to the rest of the eligible houses by year 2019.
He further informed that a total of 30,50,814 household toilets have been constructed since implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission and the Union Government and the State Government have provided `165.21 crore and `1084.37 crore, respectively. It has been estimated that the Union Government would spent `3550.44 crore and the State Government `2366.96 crore.