When villages across the State are facing dearth of services, including problem in safe drinking water supply, provided by the Rural Development Department, a major reason behind such a scenario is stated to be huge vacancies of posts in the department.
According to an official report, around one-third posts in the department are lying vacant now.
More than 1,500 posts, including 700 of engineers, are lying vacant, leading to problem in supply of safe drinking water in rural areas.
While 529 engineering posts are vacant in the Rural Works Division of the department, 175 engineering posts are vacant in Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) division. Besides, 529 non-technical posts are also lying vacant.
Out of 101 sanctioned non-technical posts in the State Secretariat, 45 posts are vacant till the date, sources added.
Execution of the RWSS programme depends on contractual and temporary employees. Expressing the outrage over worst drinking water system, several women recently gheraoed the concerned engineer in Dhenkanal town recently.
Agitators in Tigiria area of Cuttack district detained an Additional Tehsildar for a long time over drinking water scarcity issue.
Sources said only two per cent households in rural areas are now connected with drinking water supply system.
While there are 90.20 lakh houses in the rural areas, drinking water connection has been given to only 1.7 lakh houses.
As water levels are depleting, almost 50 pc tube wells installed both in cities and villages become defunct during summer season, said official sources.