Angul: Supply of sullied water to residents of Kuio village under Banarpal block by a consultancy firm hired by Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) from an abandoned nullah has drawn flak from various quarters, a report said Wednesday.
The firm allegedly draws chemical-laced water from a nullah with motor pumps and distributes them to residents through tankers like it did last year. While MCL is silent on the issue, the district administration is yet to act against the wrongdoers and save people from consuming sullied water supplied by the errant firm.
The residents are forced to consume toxic water due to lack of an alternative source of water in the village. This has triggered resentment among villagers as they question how the firm could supply them with filthy water which is unfit for consumption by animals.
However, the firm seems to have not learnt any lessons from the past and supplies the same toxic water to the village even this year. The arrangement was made after a meeting chaired by the Talcher sub-collector decided to supply drinking water to villages under Talcher sub-division December 28, 2016.
Later, in another meeting the Talcher sub-collector directed MCL to supply water to the villages from February 15 to June 30 or till the arrival of rain. Since then the firm has been supplying over 64,000 ltr of water in eight tankers to Kuio village and 24,000 ltr of water in three tankers to residents of Harijan Sahi in the village.
The village regularly faces water crisis during summer due to lack of water supply. In the past, residents have staged protests like road blockade and demonstrations but to no avail.
They gheraoed the district collectorate March 21, 2016 following which the district administration convened a tripartite meeting to find a solution to the water crisis.
Additional district magistrate Srinivas Behera, chairing the meeting, directed MCL authorities to make arrangements for water supply to the village and thereafter the latter floated a tender April 5 and a contractual firm started supplying water to the village from April 7, 2016.
However, the firm instead of supplying clean water to the village drew water from an abandoned nullah mixed with toxic chemicals discharged by an industrial plant and supplied the same to the village.
The problem came to the fore after premier vernacular daily ‘Dharitri’ published a report on this April 27, 2016. The villagers staged protests following which supply of toxic water was stopped. PNN
