Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 9: Opposition parties – Congress and BJP – Monday tried to corner the state government over the issue of jaundice spread and poor drinking water facility across the state. Congress chief whip Taraprasad Bahinipati introduced an adjournment motion in the state assembly, which said ‘lakhs of people’ were affected by contaminated water. “Over 50 people have died in the state because of jaundice and over 3,000 people were affected by it,” he said.
He said, “The tall claims of the state government stood exposed as it has failed to provide safe drinking water to the people in its 15 years’ rule.” No constructive steps were taken by the government to stop the contamination of water in River Mahanadi, leading to deaths, he said.
The BJP legislature party head Basanta Panda also targeted the state government on this issue. “Around 80 per cent of water in Nuapada district contains chloride, that is the cause for several diseases. Drain water is contaminating drinking water sources everywhere. It appears the state government keeps its eyes closed to such situations,” he said.
Both the parties criticised the government for ‘unavailability’ of doctors in hospitals and said this aggravated the jaundice situation. They demanded safe drinking water through mega lift points and other alternative ways.
Responding to the issue, the urban development minister denied the Opposition’s allegation that the government was not serious about solving the problem. All possible steps were being taken to provide safe drinking water to the people, he said.
“The government has taken up as many as 505 mega water projects to provide piped water to all villages in the state by 2019, using both ground and surface water,” he said, adding, “The government had chalked out a series of short-term and long-term measures. A project was taken up to provide drinking water to 4,892 villages through solar energy. While 1,413 projects were completed during 2014-15, a target has been set to complete the rest of the 3,479 projects during 2015-16.”
The government, he said, had dug 3, 95,920 tube wells and set up 9,618 piped water projects. On a request from the state, the Centre had approved 2,000 projects to provide drinking water in coastal and other areas. “The process to provide drinking water to 543 particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) habitations identified by the SC/ST department was expedited and a target was fixed to complete the work by end March next,” the minister said.
