Odisha's Silk City in grip of acute water crisis

BERHAMPUR: The Silk City is in the grip of an acute water crisis owing to rise in temperature and depletion of water level in Sorada reservoir and Rushikulya river. Last month, Ganjam district experienced scarce rainfall due to cyclone Fani. Taking a cue from cyclone Titli and apprehending floods, large amount of water from Sorada reservoir was released by the authorities concerned. However, cyclone Fani did not lead to heavy rainfall as was anticipated leaving the district high and dry.

The city needs around 54 MLD of water per day. Around 30 MLD of water is procured from Dakhinapur, 16 MLD from Rushikulya project at Madhapur and 4 MLD from 14 deep bore wells in the city.
However, water level in all these sources has depleted considerably. At present, around 21 MLD of water is being procured from Dakhinapur. The supply from Rushikulya project too has reduced to 12 MLD.

Earlier, water collected from bore wells was stored in underground sumps. Later, overhead tanks were constructed, which almost doubled the storage capacity. However, owing to lack of proper management, the water could not be distributed properly as a result of which supply was disrupted in several areas of the city.

In order to overcome the crisis, the Public Health department has engaged around 3o tankers with around 3,000 litre capacity each to distribute water in the scarce areas.

As per norms, each tanker is supposed to be filled up from swamps near Biju Patnaik Kalyan Mandap and the medical campus at least six times a day. But instead of distributing the water among people, some tankers allegedly distribute the same at apartments, hotels and other business establishments.

The department concerned has also been accused of neglecting the repair of pipe lines due to which a large amount of water goes waste every day. Officials said the problem will be redressed as soon as monsoon hits the State.