Recently, the State Government has declared Rs900 crore for rural drinking water project in mining areas pulling resources from District Mineral Foundation (DMF) and other Government and corporate sources.
The State has only 64 per cent coverage of total habitations with drinking water facilities and only 25 per cent of the rural households have access to piped water. As per NSSO 69th round survey for the period from July to December 2012, about 88 per cent of rural households in the country are covered with improved source of drinking water like taps, hand pumps and wells. Census 2011 data says only 30 per cent of rural households collect drinking water from taps. It is reported that about 85 per cent of rural drinking water sources are ground water based. It is not required to explain the importance of water in human life but it is unfortunate that in spite of huge allocation of resources we have not achieved the desired goal of safe drinking water for all.
It is reported that Rs1, 73, 950 crore has been invested on drinking water in the country by the Centre and State Government since beginning of the plan period. The delay in ensuring drinking water has been impacting over health and quality of life of the rural marginalised poor with lots of negative consequences. The coverage of rural population in Odisha by public water source was negligible as compared to many other developed States though the State has natural advantage of availability of ground water.
It is fact that drinking water is not available to a majority of poor households in rural belt of Odisha. Women and children in family have to walk daily twice to long distant places for collecting water for family consumption. In some places, the male members use trolley to carry water pots from distance places. Water collection has become mostly time consuming and keeps the whole family engaged for a considerable time. The rural sanitation is closely linked to availability of water; we cannot achieve Swach Bharat, especially open defecation free status of a habitation, without ensuring drinking water. The Swach Bharat Mission scheme has provision of incentives of Rs12,000 for construction of individual household latrine to all BPl, SC, ST, small and marginal farmers, landless labourer, PWD and women headed households. There are also provisions of support for construction of community sanitary complex. It is being observed that there are safety latrines being constructed by the help of the Government schemes but the people are not using it because of scarcity of water. The Central Government has decided to implement the rural water supply and rural sanitation in a conjoint approach but this has not been carried out by the State in rural areas.
The pregnant and sick women, kids, small children and elders in family face the worst suffering due to lack of safe drinking water at door step. The poor availability of drinking water and sanitation facility affects the whole family and having wider ramification on socio-economic condition of the family. In many areas of Odisha, it was unbearable in last hot summer that put burden of huge loss of time in collection of water. The marginalized sections and socially excluded people have the additional burden of getting discrimination free access to water in rural villages. There are also fluoride affected, saline affected and excess iron affected habitations where people are not getting quality water.
Recently this writer travelled to a few Dalit hamlets in Dhenkanal district to see the drinking water and sanitation facilities available in the poorest Dalit hamlets. Dhenkanal district has 280 Scheduled Castes and 606 STs concentrated habitations. The National Rural Drinking Water Programme gives priority to SCs and STs concentrated habitations in allocation of resources. It is also one of the objectives of the national drinking water mission to bring equity in access to safe drinking water for people of socially and economically weaker sections in rural areas. But in spite of schemes and programmes, there are habitations of Dalit communities without minimum source of drinking water.
Bhatakateni (Nuasahi), a hamlet village in Banasingh panchayat under Sadar block of Dhenkanal district, is home to about 25 landless Dalit families who are mostly engaged in traditional drum beating, bamboo work and daily wage earning for their livelihood. The hamlet has one tube well but the colour of the tube well water is yellow. A long time consumption of this polluted water has affected the health of people in the hamlet. The people of the village have to walk for 2 km to collect water by digging small well on the perennial stream flows in the lower part of local Patarani hill. There is another hamlet Bhatakateni (Ragadi Sahi) which is home to 20 Dalit families. There is no linking road to the village. Almost all the households depend on daily wage, drum beating and bamboo work for sustenance of daily livelihood. The hamlet has one tube well which is defunct in summer season and also having water of yellow colour. The people use the stream water for drinking purpose. They have to travel around one km to take bath in the nearest Government pond but this year the pond was dried up in the hot summer. There are similar hamlets such as Posi Banasingh and Nuagada having serious drinking water crisis. The local upper caste villagers of Posi Banasingh do not allow Dalit women to use the Government tube well. The local upper caste women are using abusive filthy casteist remarks against the poor Dalit women and in order to avoid the regular conflict the Dalit women prefer to travel to the nearby stream in Banasingh which is around 2km distance. The village Parikheda of Sogarposi panchyat is inhabited by about 90 Dalit families. The village has three tube wells but only one is functional that too with polluted water. They use Kapilas water stream for daily water consumption which is about 2 km distance from the hamlet. Arachua village in Mathatentulia panchayat of Gondia block is home to 30 Dalit families having one tube well which is non-functional. The people have to walk one km from the village to collect drinking water. The Joranda Dalit hamlet having 30 Dalit families have a pipe water connection up to the hamlet but there has been no water supply to the hamlet. The people use polluted water of a well in their hamlet. The tube well is non-functional with yellow water. There are hamlets such Khankara, Bainsia, Karamula and Kankalunda having serious drinking water problem. In spite of application by the local people for remedy, no action by the district water sanitation mission has been taken.
Many women and children have health problems due to scarcity of water even they have no proper timely regular bath and wash and women are avoiding cooking twice in a day. Census 2011 data revealed that about one fourth of the rural households have to walk more than 500 meters to fetch drinking water. The average life span of a hand pump tube well is about ten years which need to be replaced but this has not been followed in many places. The presence of iron content was found in almost all districts including Dhenkanal which is closer to all major mineral zones. There are a number of industries coming up in the district but in spite of all such advantages it is unfortunate that the poor people are derived of quality drinking water at doorstep and also not being able to use the sanitation facility created out of State fund for better hygiene.
(Email-manasbbsr15@gmail.com, Mob-09437060797)