The Chhattisgarh Government has installed as many as 83 ‘Reverse Osmosis’ (RO) plants in the regions facing problems of salinity in drinking water.
This apart, there are now 1,252 plants which remove high iron content from drinking water besides 227 plants clearing away high fluoride content from water supplied to various parts of the State, officials stated.Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) officials informed that the Government has established 26 district-level laboratories in the State for checking fluoride content in ground water sources.During the last three years, as many as 56,388 samples collected from ground water sources across the State have been examined in the aforesaid laboratories. Out of these, 328 samples were found high in fluoride content.
The Government spent more than Rs5.62 crore during 2012-13 for implementing various schemes formulated for ensuring safe drinking water to the people living in fluoride affected areas.The number of samples tested for fluoride content in each of the district-level laboratories established in 26 districts till September this year are as follows- 7541 in Jashpur district, 5495 in Ambikapur district, 5102 in Sukma district, 4292 in Durg district, 3754 in Rajnandgaon district, 3386 in Raipur district, 3365 in Narayanpur district, 3253 in Kabeerdham district, 2711 in Korba district, 2431 in Dhamtari district, 2258 in Bilaspur district, 1876 in Bijapur district, 1788 in Koriya district, 1731 in Dantewada district, 1466 in Kanker district, 1387 in Raigarh district, 1079 in Bastar district, 922 in Janjgir Champa district, 547 in Balrampur-Ramanujganj district, 500 in Gariaband district, 420 Bemetara district, 388 in Mahasamund district, 373 in Mungeli district, 183 in Balod district and 144 in Surajpur district.
In May last year, the State Government has established a total of 105 ‘Flouride Removal Plants’ in settlements of 44 villages in Bastar division.In September this year, Chief Minister Raman Singh had approved Rs190 crore under the State Government’s ‘Nal-Jal Scheme’ for eliminating salinity in water supply being made to nearly 152 villages of Bemetara district from Shivnath River.The PHED officials informed that under ‘Nal-Jal’ scheme nearly 1.74 lakh people residing in several villages of Bemetara, Navagarh and Saja block will be benefitted.
Under the scheme, 751 km of pipelines and 139 overhead tanks will be facilitated to ensure the supply of safe drinking water in villages.This apart, many parts of Chhttisgarh are troubled with drinking water shortages on account of the continuously falling ground water level.The problem escalates in summer as rivers, rivulets, ponds and even hand pumps go dry in many areas. The drinking water problem increases day after day because of its non-conservation during the monsoons through rain water harvesting methods, officials stated.Keeping in mind all these problems, the State Government decided to adopt rainwater harvesting system and implemented rules for installing this system not only in the urban households but in other areas also, so that the ground water level could be increased to some extent.
The Government had decided that besides official buildings, private houses would also be constructed with rainwater harvesting system. Such order has been issued to urban areas also.According to the order, while passing the drawing for construction of new building, the authority should ensure that rainwater harvesting system is being installed in the new building. Additional fee has also been prescribed for it.As a result, if the landowner does not install the system in the building, urban bodies would install it in the building with the money deposited by the owner.
After three years of the issuance of the order, now it has become compulsory to construct rainwater-harvesting system in all Government buildings. Under the rainwater harvesting system, it is mandatory to build such a system at the time of construction of building, so that rainwater does not go waste during monsoons.