Image used for representative purposes only. (Express Illustration)
ROURKELA: Rourkela had become a drinking water surplus city a long back. Still, a sizeable population residing in the city’s slums are forced to buy water from some deep borewell owners. Residents of Gopahandupali and Timber Colony slums are yet to be benefitted from the mega drinking water project. While the major part of the city gets piped water supply, residents of the slums depend on tubewells for their daily needs.
But the tubewells stop functioning during summer. The slum dwellers then buy water from a dozen deep bore well owners who charge Rs 350-Rs 400 per month for supplying water for 10 minutes daily through garden pipes.
The two slums have 100 households each and owing to the deep bore wells, the water table in the localities has further depleted. Sources said authorities of Sundargarh district administration and Rourkela Municipal Corporation are aware of the matter which had come to the notice of Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). Despite directions from the CMO issued on April 18, 2017, authorities of Public Health and Engineering department took no steps to assuage the woes of the slum dwellers.
Sashirekha Das of Timber Colony said smaller slum pockets like Telipada, Jugnirman Basti, Lohrapada, Cooliekhatal Basti, Paharikua Basti, part of Aarnath Basti, Mahavir Chowk Basti, Ananddham Basti and several other areas are the worst affected. Senior BJP leader and former councillor of erstwhile Rourkela Municipality Pramila Das said around 15,000 slum dwellers are forced to buy water due to the faulty implementation of the mega drinking water project and few other piped water supply projects.
Most interior pockets of Gopabandhupali and Timber Colony clusters are yet to get piped water supply while adding slums located close to the main supply line are getting adequate water and also causing massive wastage as the supply pipes do not have taps. Das said areas like Telipada, Lohrapada, downhill of Vaishno Devi temple and many other areas have been given water distribution lines, but the are not getting water due to faulty pipelines and mismanagement of the 2.5 lakh litre capacity overhead tank inaugurated in April 2022.
Despite repeated efforts, Public Health & Engineering superintending engineer Adil Mohammed was not available for comments on the issue. During 2017 when the peak demand was 47.9 MLD (million litre per day) Rourkela had augmented its supply capacity to 77.8 MLD.
