Members of the Brahmapur Nagarik Manch and Rushikulya Banchao Abhijan strongly protested against Government’s apathy towards solving the acute water crisis in Brahmapur city, where almost half of its population is deprived of regular supply of potable drinking water for last one week.
BJP leader and former Assembly Deputy Speaker Rama Chandra Panda held an indefinite dharna on Thursday morning in front of the office of the SE (PHD) demanding to restore uninterrupted water supply through tanker to the residents of all the 40 wards of the Brahmapur Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Panda said while the Rushikullya-Mahanadi Water link Project was yet to be executed, the State Government had assured that necessary budgetary provisions would be made to undertake a pipeline water scheme between Janibilla and Dakshinapur. Despite a lapse of nearly two decades, no budgetary provision was made for the project, Panda alleged.
The former Deputy Speaker told that unless the Government gives an assurance to procure 100 water tankers to supply 2-3 tankers each on a daily basis to the 40 wards and immediately allocate the required fund in the budget to undertake the pipeline water scheme between Janabilla and Dakshinapur, the agitation will continue. Gandhian leaders Brundaban Sahu, Utschab Sabat, Sarat Chandra Sahu, advocate and social worker Prof Krushna Chandra Panda, S Prakash Chandra Patra, Prabhat Sadangi, Jaganath Jena, N Rajendra Kumar, Dharanidhar Behera, KAS Patra and Magata Patra participated in the dharana.
Notably, Brahmapur needs 60 MlD water per day while from all the sources it is getting about only 35 MlD, making the situation worse. However, due to the prevailing dry conditions, there has been a marked fall in water supply from Madhapur wells from 20 MlD to 10 MlD during last one week compounding the woes of the denizens.
Sources said that due to scarcity of water in the city, scores of locals in Ramanagar First lane, Gandhinagar Third line Extension, lanjipalli, Hillpatana and Badakhemundi Street had quit their native villages.