Bhubaneswar: Many towns in the state face acute water crisis in summer. With the government having failed to complete nearly 50 per cent of the total urban water supply projects so far, a large number of towns are set to face water crisis in the upcoming summer.
According to officials in the housing and urban development (H&UD) department, the government had decided to execute 1,097 water supply projects in 110 urban local bodies (ULBs) with an estimated budget of Rs 100 crore during the 2015-16 fiscal. Of them, 499 are new projects and the rest projects already in progress. However, the government has been able to complete only 564 projects with an expenditure of Rs 77 crore till the end of December last, said sources.
Similarly, the H&UD department has also failed to complete construction of the targeted number of sewerage projects in the state’s urban areas.
While the government had targeted to complete 50 sewerage projects, including 21 ongoing ones, this year, only 24 of them have been executed so far, said sources. The remaining projects are in different stages of completion, they added.
The state has, however, made good progress in setting up hand-pump tube wells in the towns. A budgetary provision of Rs 10.5 crore was made in the 2015-16 fiscal for sinking of 1,428 hand-pump tube wells in pockets facing water scarcity in various civic bodies. As many as 1,039 of these projects have been completed, said officials.
The progress of revenue collection for water supply also remains disappointing.
Out of a target of Rs 76 crore fixed for the current fiscal, only Rs 41.22 crore was collected up to December last, said officials. In the previous fiscal, the state had collected water tax amounting to Rs 57 crore against a target of Rs 75 crore.
When asked about the slow progress in the execution of the water supply projects, engineer-in-chief of public health engineering organisation (PHEO), S Laxmipati, said most of the projects would be completed soon. “As far as the water supply and sewerage projects are concerned, there are some big projects worth more than Rs 10 crore that cannot be completed in a year. I am regularly reviewing the progress of each project, and we hope to complete them soon,” he said.
Laxmipati also said some other issues like delay in land acquisition and protests by the local people were responsible for the projects getting delayed. “Now, we are emphasising public participation in implementation of the projects so that the projects are completed in time,” he added. PNN
