With monsoon ending its sojourn in Jharkhand and leaving the State dry and public outcry rising over shortage of water for irrigation and household consumption, the State Government has finally started reacting to the situation with measures when the reservoirs and rivers have already receded beyond the normal mark.
Rationing, checking dams besides repair and maintenance work of existing supply routes are the measures that the department of Drinking Water and Sanitation Department (DWSD) has finally resorted to quench thirst of the population.
“We are doing whatever could be done and we will keep exploring what can be done in future. Whatever projects that are underway are running on time,” said Minister DSWD, Chandra Prakash Chaudhary.
The DWSD recently cleared proposals to construct 457 check dams and earmarked Rs 513.129-crore for the ambitious project in all the 24 districts of Jharkhand to help farmers and started rationing from two prominent dams-Hatia and Dhurwa—whereas rationing is yet to begin from Kanke and Rukka water reservoirs.
Hand pump repair and repairing water pipelines are few steps that the department has fallen back to as the problem is getting intense by day. While piecemeal measures have been rolled out to counter the problem other serious issues like dredging and desiltation of dams is yet to begin to increase water retention capacity.
According to sources, the department could also consider rational distribution of water if rationing could not bring respite to the water-starved population of the capital. Chaudhary had reportedly conceded that water from Rukka could be supplied in certain areas in Hatia where the main reservoir has gone below 9-feet from previous year in the month of October.
As the other major reservoirs are coping with falling water level and maintaining supply, water level in Kanke Dam is 2122-feet which the officials of the department claim enough to sustain till July, 2016.
Notably, after Dhurwa, Hatia Dam has started rationing from Monday and like Dhurwa it will also provide water on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The rationing system of water supply is being asserted to provide respite till July next year.
“Our assessment says that with the present amount of water in the dam, this system can stretch as far as July next year,” maintained Executive Engineer of Dhurwa, KK Verma.
Meanwhile, the Ranchi Municipal Corporation has also pressed its vehicle for supplying water on demand and around 30 water-tankers and the urban civic body is likely to step up efforts of identifying crisis areas and making provisions for repairing HYDT boring and handpumps in municipal areas.