The issue of over exploitation of depleting ground water and efforts to conserve the resource was raised by legislators during the budget session of Jharkhand Assembly. MLAs cutting across party lines raised the issue seeking attention of the house.
Raising the issue, Jamshedpur East independent MLA, Saryu Roy said that rivers are a major source of drinking water in the State, but due to unplanned urbanization cities have shrunk the rivers. Roy, who had earlier launched the ‘Damodar Bachao Andolan’ speaking during a discussion on the demand for grants for drinking water, sanitation and water resources, raised the demand for setting up river conservation Act in the State. He said, “Due to encroachment of rivers in urban areas.
Laws should be made and strictly implemented that no construction work should be allowed on the banks of rivers.” Roy also demanded a third party assessment of the schemes of the Irrigation Department. He said that work should be done according to the target set under the World Bank. He said that the quality of drinking water is of paramount importance. Its biggest source is rivers. Under the Sustainable Development of the World Bank, the target for drinking water till 2030, should be worked on.
Echoing the tone of Roy, Congress MLA from Poreyahat Pradeep Yadav said that the report of the Directorate of Geology is worrying as the ground water table has gone down by 6 meters in Ranchi, Dhanbad, Jharia, Bokaro, Ramgarh and Jamshedpur.
In Jharkhand only 6 or 7 rivers have water. Our dependence for drinking water is on tube wells. He said that 99 percent of the households get water through 4.04 lakh tube wells. In such a situation, the tube wells should be repaired as soon as possible. Because habitually the government does this work after the summer has passed, due to which there is a problem of drinking water.
Yadav also demanded for a probe over declaring the state as ODF by an independent agency. Yadav said that in the year 2018-19, the previous government had declared the state as ODF. “This false announcement was made on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. I demand from the present government that the investigation of the ODF declaration should be done by an independent agency.”