Villagers in as many as four to five districts in the State are going to witness acute drinking water crisis this summer. Despite a plethora of rural drinking water schemes including the centrally funded National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), over one crore rural populace in the State have to live this summer with acute water scarcity. Sample the water-tight scenario in Odisha. While around half of the rural habitations in districts like Ganjam, Baragarh and Keonjhar have no access to at least 40 litres per capita per day in summer, the shocker is a whopping 86 per cent rural habitations in Balangir and over 72 per cent in Gajapati district have no potable water source to quench thirst in the gruelling summer heat. And, for over 5, 400 rural habitations, the only option is to drink impure water. Rural habitations in the Puri district are the most hit by impure drinking water as around 1,500 such habitations in the district either have iron contaminated or salinity affected ground water. Even with the impending festival of Nabakalebar in 2015, the State administration was unable to raise the target of treating quality affected habitats as it could take up only a handful of around 20 such for water source treatment in 2014-15.
Nuapada is the other worst quality affected district in the State, where over 12 per cent rural habitations have fluoride contaminated water and only seven such were taken up for treating by the Government this fiscal. Though often most vocal on the miseries of Kalahandi and Balangir region, the Government on ground, however, has failed to include even one fluoride or iron affected habitation in Kalahandi this fiscal for treatment under the NRDWP. Quality affected groundwater in Odisha counts much because the Census 2011 reveals that around 80 per cent households rely on groundwater as their main water source.
Piped water supply access is limited to mere 7.5 per cent of total households in the State, finds the Census. And the Government support in making available households access to potable water becomes more conspicuous as mere 28 per cent depend on wells as their principal water source; in contrast a whopping three-fifth of households depend on tube well/hand pump water in the State, reveals the Census 2011. Since sinking a tube well is more expensive then digging a well, the Government has to chip in with support in rural habitations in the State. But the NRDWP implementation in Odisha has not been up to the mark as the ground data reveals.
Moreover, data suggests a higher number of ‘slipped back’ habitations in the State that have been largely attributed to poor operation and maintenance of water points and also drying up of such points due to wrong spot selection - which has been pointed out even by an NRDWP evaluation study. And sources in rural water supply section blame this to the origin of so-called partially covered habitation concept in the State, which is currently around 12 - 19 per cent. However, as of March 2, 2015 the total expenditure under NRDWP in the State has been Rs 215 crore and around 29,000 such projects are at different stages of construction, suggests data with the State government.