Safe drinking water is a non-negotiable requirement for human life but it is most unfortunate that it is not accessible to a vast section of poor people in slums and rural hamlets those belong to the marginalised sections.
In spite of schemes and programmes with financial allocation, there are thousands of hamlets in the State where women are burdened with collection of drinking water for daily consumption. They have to walk long distances to collect the available water without little care for its quality.
Denial of water is tantamount to denying a dignified life. Availability of safe drinking water at doorstep is one of the major indicators of quality of life of people but why the Government has not been able to ensure this basic human need since 60 years of plan intervention is a matter necessitating some serious contemplation.
It is being observed that the Government has no plan, target and strategy to converge the available financial resources to ensure the availability of drinking water for the poor and marginalised living in hamlets and slums and especially for people in water scarcity areas such as mines and industrial belts and tribal areas. There has been spending on schemes of drinking water without a long term plan for such an important need.
The local Government officials and elected people’s representatives, especially the elected representatives of the marginalised sections, must regularly make visit to the hamlets to see the situation and difficulties of the people there and take timely intervention in disaster mitigating manner to ensure safe drinking water. There is absence of appropriate complaint mechanism at local level to registered grievances for non-functioning of tube wells and its quality of water. The blatant violation of human rights by the State is not being questioned by the civil society members of the same village living with plenty of water.
The poor economic status and physical separation of Dalit hamlets along with continued social exclusion restricts their access to available water sources in the upper caste villages. The women have to spend around four to five hours in a day for collecting water to meet the bare consumption need of the family. They are usually collecting water from open ponds, Nalas, rivers and polluted water bodies. The local administration has been apathetic towards the suffering of the poor and there is no concern to improve the living condition of the poor who are being neglected for centuries. The manmade in equality and discrimination in access to drinking water is not being seriously addressed by the Government during the last 65 years of constitutional governance. The State Government has been making all efforts to supply water to the mining, industry and business houses with all kinds of support and benefits but the same Government has been neglecting the poor people.
India continues to be a country of highest number of people in the world without access to safe drinking water and a majority of the people belongs to the marginalised poor. Even the condition in India is worse than Pakistan and Bangladesh as reported in media on the World Water Day. The non-availability of adequate safe drinking water is a major hardship for millions of people. There must be deep bore well and pipe water supply facility to all slums and hamlets.
Political parties in Odisha are silent over the issues of drinking water. The Dalit and tribal hamlets have no drinking water infrastructure to ensure water throughout the year. There has been very minimal investment to improve the quality of life of the poor and marginalized though there are schemes and budgetary provisions which remain without proper implementations. The Central and State Governments, corporate houses and local bodies along with communities must come together to address the important need of the people who are suffering because of the inaction of the local public authorities. In this context, the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) trust has been set up in all districts and the major mineral bearing districts have a good amount of fund available at the district level placed under dispersal of the district Collector with the provision of allocation of 60 per cent of funds for drinking water purpose but unfortunately the DMFs headed by district Collectors and the DRDA Project Director as chief executive are not proactive, when it comes to proper implementation of the schemes.
The district administration should plan for supply of piped water from the nearest rivers and other perennial water sources. The projects must have long term sustainability so that people may not suffer in the long run. The revival of lasting water sources must be explored.
Along with water distribution, the conservation of water and control of water pollution is equally important in order to face the increasing demand for safe water. An UN report on water says about 80 per cent of the wastewater is discharged without proper treatment. It is a fact that a major part of mineral belt in Odisha has been in the process of desertification due to scarcity of water. The storage of rain water is also an important issue as major rain water flows to the ocean. The Government must encourage rain water harvesting by each household and develop watershed in all villages through its drinking water supply projects. The local administration and PRI institutions must act to stop inequality in access to safe drinking water in State.
(manasbbsr15@gmail.com)