Deogaon: The residents of Tepren in Deogaon block of Bolangir district are facing an acute shortage of drinking water. The village has three wards and a population of 2,000.
The Rural Water Supply department launched a drinking water project here after reports about people drinking fluoride contaminated water and falling ill appeared in the media eight years ago. It has been three years since then but the project has not started.
The residents of the village had filed several complaints with the concerned department about the erratic water supply, but there was no action.
Angry villagers had protested before the District Water and Sanitation department last year but instead of repairing the drinking water project, the department dug two new tube-wells.
Of the two, one is not working. So the villagers broke the pipe of the pump house near the high school and connected it to the tube-well. Now the people are drawing water from there.
Of the six tube-wells in the village, only two are fluoride-free. So the villagers are using water from the two for drinking.
Two ponds in this locality have dried up. So people are facing problems in discharging their daily chores and in providing water to domestic animals.
Explaining the water crisis, Junior Engineer Mrutunjaya Rout said he had sent a proposal to drill a deep bore-well in the village to higher authorities and a tender was floated. The project will start functioning soon, he added.
PNN