Kendrapara: With the increase in day temperatures and humidity after cyclone Fani, drinking water shortage has started haunting the villages of Mahakalapara block.
Around a dozen villages in Barkandha and Mangalpur panchayats are facing acute drinking water problems.
Drinking water shortage has become a regular problem every summer in Barkanda, Adoi, Kochila, Tentulikandha, Gokhakhati, Sathiabati, Gojiabandha, Bandhapada, Gualakani, Mangalapur and other villages.
Remote villages experience severe drinking water shortage as government programmes under the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation have failed.
The people here are forced to use unhygienic pond water due to non-availability of safe piped water. It is a familiar sight here to see women and children carrying vessels on their heads and moving in small groups to fetch water from ponds.
During summer, the water in wells starts drying up and the people here are forced to live without safe potable water.
The villagers have to trek one to two miles to collect potable water from a private tube-well in Gojabandha village. The problem is not of recent origin, but has been in existence for three decades.
“I have been experiencing drinking water shortage here in the village since the days I came here as a newly-wed bride,” said Sarathi Roul, a middle aged woman of Gojabandha.
“If the private tube-well malfunctions we have to depend on unhygienic pond water or the saline water of Luna River,” said Rabindra Palai, a local.
Although there are some shallow tube-wells in the villages they do not yield safe drinking water, the villagers said.
The villagers said that the District RWSS has failed to supply safe water due to substandard implementation.
The government had started a Saline Water Purifying Project around a decade back at Mahakalapara to provide safe drinking water to 45 coastal villages. But it is not functional now, and nothing has been done to make it operational, locals said.
Bibhuti Ranjan Panda, assistant executive engineer of Kendrapara RWSS, said the department is aware of the people’s problems.
He said Barkanda, Gokhakhati, Sathiabati, Gojiabandha, Bandhapada, Gualakani and Mangalapur are facing acute drinking water shortage. The RWSS has been sending four water tankers daily to these areas and to neighbouring panchayats to supply drinking water, he said.
An estimated 16,000 litres of drinking water has been provided to the Fani-hit villages of Mangalpur and Barkanda GP of Mahakalapara block through the four water tankers, he added.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation stone for a mega piped water supply project costing an estimated Rs 241 crore December 8, 2018 under the Basudha Yojana at Sarumunha village.
The project is expected to provide safe piped water to 36 gram panchayats of Mahakalapara and Marshaghai blocks.
The Rs 241 crore mega piped water supply project will cater to the needs of 2.34 lakh people of 200 villages.
The mega water supply project is expected to solve the problems of the people in the two blocks in due course.
PNN