Drinking Water suitation:

These issues has been taken from the district Koraput, a district which ranks top most not only in Odisha but also in India in terms of poor development parameters which is home to tribal. In the facade of development a lot of money is being put into the district. Most bilateral organizations & Ngos are putting their effort to make the government’s development mechanism effective towards achieving the MDG goals but nobody realizes the gap that remains between the availability of services to the community and for them to avail the facilities. Figures shows that a lot funds are being utilized on safe drinking water projects but still the community faces water issues. In Koraput region people are mostly using open well, stream water & hand pumps for drinking water purposes. The dark side is that to avail the Government drinking water the people have to pay an amount of Rs 12000 for a new connection in NAC/ Municipal area which is too much for those who cannot even afford one square meal a day. The payments to official charges from Rs 6500- 7000 and the rest is being spent on excavation work & instruments purchase such as GI pipe & PVC pipe due to  geographical structure. Koraput is located along the Eastern Ghats.

Safe Drinking Water & Odisha: An overview on the current scenario

After air, the next most important thing for our survival is water simply we can say water is life. A time is likely to come when we have to buy water at a price similar to petrol. Water is a basic need of mankind.  Due to rapid population growth, urbanization, industrialisation and development, safe and clear water is no more infinite.  Rural poor suffer most in absence of availability of safe and clean drinking water. Unsafe drinking water cause major health hazards. Waterborne diseases are most significant cause of ill health in rural Orissa.   

Although in Odisha, numbers of plans/ projects are being implemented by the central government as well as state government to address the safe drinking water issues at both Urban & rural areas but still people are far away from access to safe drinking water especially rural people. Where water is available there is a question on the quality of water means there are many habitations in Odisha having severe quality problem like iron, salinity, fluoride and chloride contamination and also bacteriological contatmintion.

As per data collected from various areas of Kordha, Ganjam & Puri, figure shows 80 percentages of people from rural areas are not aware about the contamination of water which causes waterborne diseases such as diarrhea & cholera epidemic.  Some villagers of Balugaon walk 4-5 kilometres for collecting water and spend at least 4 hours daily in process waiting for the turn to fill water and carrying water to and fro from their home. This is the scenario of rural areas where even one drop water counts.

A number of villages/areas of Kordha & puri districts have been connected under pipe line water supply but lack of proper management & maintenance like electric failure, break down of Pump   and geographical beerier such as up land the water supply is crashed in such areas. Some areas hand pumps & tube wells are established to tide over water scarcity but unless the quality of drinking water is ensured, provision of only water is no use.