Jajpur: The woes of denizens of Jajpur district for a bucketful of drinking water are a everyday tale. An earlier declaration of Jajpur as a progressive district by the state government now sounds empty and meaningless, a report said.
According to sources, drinking water supply to individual households in Jajpur through pipelines reached just 8.86% so far. As against this, water supply in rural areas of the district is far worse.
The state government spends crores of rupees as grant for providing pure drinking water to denizens. Rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) department claims successful functioning of 309 drinking water projects in the district. As over 50 projects do not suffice the requirements of local people, many projects allegedly lie defunct.
Worthy to note here that there are 3,84,157 families residing in 10 blocks of the district. The total population of these families would be over 18 lakhs. However, drinking water could be supplied only to 34,046 families.
Pipeline connections were given to 1,477 households in November, 32,024 households in December. Previously only 545 households in Jajpur district got supply water.
On the other hand, RWSS department has set targets to supply pure drinking water to at least 25% households of Jajpur district by the end of March 2020. In such a situation, it has raised the eyebrows of denizens as to how such targets will be met, locals informed.
Similarly, drinking water is being supplied to families of 1,560 villages in the district through 309 projects. Even as the department claims successful functioning of Sathipur project for past three years; a power transformer has not been functional.
It was alleged that due to use of low-quality accessories many drinking water projects in rural areas lie defunct. The Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology (CIPET), Bhubaneswar inspects plastic pipes and gives quality certification for use in the projects.
There is an unholy nexus between CIPET authorities, the officials of RWSS department and contract firms. As a result, low-quality pipes and other accessories are supplied here and drinking water projects in rural areas lie defunct, locals suspected.
On being contacted, Jajpur RWSS Divisional Engineer Amiya Kumar Parija said, “We have set targets to provide pure drinking water to at least 25% of the individual households by end of March 2020”. He also supported the successful functioning of several rural projects.