Jajpur: Even as a few months are left for the arrival of summer, residents in two towns of Jajpur district are unlikely to get solution to their drinking water problem as the public health engineering organization (PHEO) is yet to complete the tender process for laying pipelines, a report said Sunday.
Residents in Vyasanagar municipality and Jajpur municipality will have to fight hard again for a drop of water during the summer season. The PHEO has awarded the contract to Samir Kumar Singh, an A-class contractor of Jagatsinghpur, for laying the pipelines in wards-11, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24 and 25.
Similarly, it has awarded another contract to Sarat Chandra Sahu, an A-class contractor of Sathiatikiri in Jajpur block, for laying the pipelines in wards-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 16 and 18 in Jajpur town. The department has asked the two contractors to submit necessary documents in this regard within a period of seven days.
However, as the tender process is yet to get completed it is unlikely that residents in 15 wards of two urban regions will get drinking water during summer.
This has happened despite crores of rupees being allocated to resolve the drinking water problems. The areas under Vysanagar civic body get 5.41 million litre of water daily while the requirement is 8.49 million litre. This has come at a time when the population of Vysanagar, known as the gateway to Kalinganagar Industrial Complex, has crossed 1.5 lakh.
In view of the increasing population, the state government launched Kharasrota-Mundamala treatment plan at a plan outlay of `14.51 crore with funds sanctioned under the Urban Infrastructure Development for Small and Medium Town (UIDSMT) in 2011. However, the project is far from being completed.
As a result, residents in Kanheipur, Chandmaa, Kachahudisahi, Dahisahi, Rampas, Satakania, Sobara, Digisahi and Dhabalagiri are still reeling under water crisis despite the town having 127 tube wells, 4,872 piped water connections, and 25O stand posts.
The department has also initiated the process to replace the pipelines that are more than 40 years old and lay new ones six months back with `2.35 crore sanctioned for the purpose.
The situation in Jajpur town is a little better than Vysanagar. The town gets 5.10 million litre water daily against its requirement of 6.36 million litre. The town has 140 tube wells and 207 stand posts but eight wards are still deprived of drinking water.
SDO Khetra Mohan Sahu said efforts are being made to complete the pipeline laying work before summer so as to provide drinking water to the households.
PNN