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.
