Even as the district administration of Dhenkanal has clamped Section 144 of CrPc to prevent coronavirus infection, it is quite apathetic to the growing pollution of the Brahmani river and the plight of the riverside villagers.
More than six lakh villagers of eight blocks residing at river banks of Brahmani in Dhenkanal district are affected due to Brahmani water pollution. And today, they are highly vulnerable to Coronavirus, said sources.
The interState river before entering to Dhenkanal district at village Kamalanga, has four distributaries (streams) called Sankha, Kura, Tikira and Nandira. During early 1980, fertilizer plant, ORICHEM, NTPC, Heavy Water Project of Talcher and Nalco of Angul even though used heavy quantity of pure drinking water from upstream of Bramhani, they discharged their dirty chemicals effluents to Brahmani through the Nandira nala.
Meanwhile, many industries among them have been closed and others have made their own arrangement of waste disposal, but no remarkable effort was made either by the Union Government or State Government to stop the mindless discharge of fluids when the river was just taken for granted.
Bramhani though has been categorised as ‘D’ grade polluted river, the Union Government had paid only Rs 2.13 crore out of a budget of Rs 24 crore made by an expert committee in year 1993-94. The State Government has spent only Rs 33 lakh during the year 1994-95 to clean the river water, which was inadequate.
Fishermen earning a living from Bramhani have lost their livelihood due to polluted water. Boat drivers(Keuta) have lost their jobs, after construction of the Sarangadhar bridge to link Kamakshyanagar with Dhenkanal.
For carrying minerals through Brahmani from Jajpur to Kendrapada, Britishers though had constructed an anicut at Jenapur and Jokadia during the Year 1860, but the anicut has been damaged due to lack of maintenance.