It is difficult to figure out the actual drinking water scenario in Odisha. While the media paints the scenario black highlighting water scarcity in almost all parts of the State and insufficient access to portable water, the State Government claims to be arranged drinking water provisioning for all.
While the Government takes recourse to the statistics, others display bare facts. These two different pictures of drinking water scenario in the State are so widely different that one fails to draw a conclusion about the real drinking water scenario in Odisha.
The picture is not just confined to rural Odisha. Urban parts of the State also experience the same. Whether the smart urban bodies like the State capital or smaller census towns, everywhere we can see and experience water crisis or water related maladies not just during summer, rather across the seasons.
Nevertheless, a greater political angle is also associated with ensuring adequate drinking water for people residing in urban areas of the State. Thus, more than treating the water provisioning from a rights perspective, the forces seating on the helm of power from political perspective always try to address any water related problem persisting to the community they are governing for vote bank.
Thus, when it comes to the drinking water scenario of urban set-up in Odisha in general and the State capital in particular, waster automated teller machine (ATM) has come out in a big way. Let’s see how and why water ATMs have started mushrooming across the capital city, despite Bhubaneswar being a Smart City.
Bhubaneswar is having a problem of water leakage (Known as non-revenue water in Public Health Engineering Department or PHED). Official estimation is 62.5 per cent loss, whereas it should be 20 per cent. Besides there are many uncovered habitations and many isolated habitations are still dependent on hand-pumps pumping ground water.
Those hand-pumps are facing drawdown during summer. So putting water ATM is an easy way to tackle such crisis. Thus, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Commission (BMC) started promoting this.
Another area is water supply in Bhubaneswar is being managed by the PHED and water crisis complaints come to the BMC. Arrangement is the BMC has to deposit estimated money to the PHED for water supply service improvement. But there is a poor coordination among both.
Considering political nature of the BMC and fund availability, the BMC cannot tell people to go to the PHED. Thus, water ATM is an easy way out.
Another aspect is the quality of water people are getting. There are slums in Bhubaneswar which often register various water related diseases including jaundice. The prime reasons behind are firstly those slums are not duly connected with safe water supply system and second is even if there are due supply systems, considering the breakage and leakage in the supply system laid decades ago, those are contaminating the water being provided though the system. Hence, to curb the reported water related diseases and to ensure safe drinking water for communities, especially the excluded and marginalised ones, authorities responsible for ensuring safe drinking water have devised water ATM as the best solution.
All the water ATMs installed across the city are based on reverse osmosis (RO) system of purification. However, RO system has multiple loopholes ranging from highest water loss to removal of all minerals those are good for health. It should be noted that RO could be adopted as a purification technology, where the contaminant from water cannot really be removed by any other means – mostly appropriate for dangerous chemical contaminants like fluoride and arsenic. But, a surface based supply system having bacteriological contamination really does not require the technology like RO, which further aggravates the water loss. Then why RO has been taken as the only technology to be fitted with the ATM across?
Once swiped, the ATM screen will show options of quantity of water. The machine will pump out water based on the quantity of litres opted by the people. On a given day, maximum 20 litres of water can be fetched using one card. Other than people who need water, some people have started using those water ATM for business purpose. They obtain multiple cards and they do sell water to various street side mediocre food business stalls.
The height is that water ATM has been started percolating to rural sphere even. In quality-affected areas, this has really taken the centre stage of safe drinking water provisioning and the technology for purification remains same – RO. Nuapada is a case point. Nuapada being a fluoride endemic district, water ATM with RO technology has been promoted widely. But the backwater from ATM, which amounts more that 50 per cent of water gets into system, carries higher degree of fluoride and gets into the surface amounting to surface water contamination. Instead of looking for alternative safe drinking water sources, looking into water ATM with RO technology is a danger signal in rural places like Nuapada. Considering the financial allocation to Gram Panchayats through 14th Finance Commission grant and having mandate for utilising certain amount for drinking water, the Gram Panchayats have also started opting water ATM as an easy way out, utilising the fund as well as provisioning safe drinking water to community. But how appropriate the technology is for fluoride endemic areas has never been thought of.
The way water ATM is being promoted in current days, it seems this is the panacea to water crisis of the State. Looking into the whole gamut of issues associated with water ATM, a serious thought has to be put by authorities and institutions promoting those in the name of welfare of the community, especially the excluded and marginalised. Better late than never, water should be provided in a more sustainable way and to fix a problem, another problem should not be nurtured.
(The author works with WaterAid India, Bhubaneswar. The views expressed are personal.)