Three lakh households in Odisha lack drinking water facilities

BHUBANESWAR: Nearly three lakh households in Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts do not have drinking water facilities.This came to the fore at a meeting taken by Minister for Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Pradip Amat in the Lok Seva Bhavan on Tuesday to review the progress made to provide drinking water to all households in the State by 2024.

The review revealed that out of the 3,24,354 households in Kendrapara district, 1,42,147  do not have access to drinking water facilities. Similarly, 1,48,297 households out of the total 2,72,995 do not have access to drinking water. As over 40 per cent of the households in these two districts do not have drinking water facilities even as the target of 2024 is only 18 months away, the Minister asked the officials to focus on completion of ongoing projects as early as possible.

The Minister directed the officials of the department to get first hand information about progress of the projects and review their implementation regularly. He said that bills should be approved after checking the quality of project work. Besides, he said companies executing the drinking water projects should be asked to repair the roads after laying of the pipelines within 15 days. Penalties should be imposed on companies found delaying repair of roads, he added.

Minister for Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, government chief whip Prashant Kumar Muduli, former minister Sashibhusan Behera and ruling party MLAs of the districts expressed resentment over the delay in the execution of drinking water projects. The Minister informed the MLAs that the State government has sanctioned Rs 1045.28 crore for implementation of drinking water projects in these two districts.