Piped water for all of rural Odisha by 2024
Bhubaneswar: Odisha has set a target to enable all rural households to have access to safe and adequate drinking water within the premises of their house by 2024. A whopping Rs 50,000 crore is projected to be spent under different schemes and projects to ensure the same.
Fifty per cent villages have already been covered under the piped water supply project but only 11 per cent rural households have access to piped drinking water at their doorstep now.
Official sources in the state panchayati raj and drinking water department said out of the total 47,411 villages in the state, 24,219 villages have been covered under piped water supply projects. And, out of total 83.06 households in Odisha, only 8 lakh households have household tap connections.
“We aspire to cover all rural households under piped drinking water system by 2024 as per the target set under the Jal Jeevan Mission. Providing safe and adequate drinking water to all rural household is one of the top priorities of the state government. We have earmarked around Rs 8,000 crore in the annual state budget for 2020-21 fiscal to strengthen the drinking water system,” said B Parameswaran, director, drinking water and sanitation.
Parameswaran said 66 mega drinking water projects and 2,000 individual piped water supply projects, with a total investment of Rs 20,000 crore, are under different stages of implementation. He added that administrative approval has been sought for projects worth another Rs 4,400 crore in eight districts — Gajapati, Kandhamal, Kalahandi, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Boudh, Sambalpur and Sonepur — where the piped water supply coverage is less. The government also plans to set up piped water supply projects in Athagarh and Tigiria blocks of Cuttack district, where the quality of drinking water is not good.
Although the initial lockdown stalled work, state panchayati raj minister and drinking water minister Pratap Jena recently reviewed progress of the projects and asked officials to expedite them. “The government is committed to ensuring safe and adequate drinking water for all households,” said Jena.
Besides the Jal Jeevan Mission, which is a centrally sponsored scheme that is being implemented on a 50:50 fund sharing pattern between the state and Centre, the state government also launched the Buxi Jagabandhu Assured Water Supply to Habitations (BASUDHA), a state specific scheme, in 2017-18.
Other than budgetary allocation, resources such as funds from the district mineral foundation and Odisha Mineral Bearing Area Development Corporation are being spent to strengthen the drinking water supply system to individual households in the mining-affected areas.
In urban areas, all households will get piped drinking water supply by December this year. To improve the quality of water, the state government has started a ‘drink from tap’ mission. Around nine projects have been taken up on pilot basis in Bhubaneswar and Puri in the first phase of the mission.
Bikash Kumar Pati, programme coordinator of Water Aid, an NGO that works on water, sanitation and hygiene, said the government’s plan to provide piped water connection to every household is a very ambitious project. “There are two challenges ahead. First, what will be the mechanism to ensure quality service delivery? Second, what will be the arrangements to enhance the existing piped water supply for conversion to functional household tap connection?” he said.