Bhubaneswar: A total of 2,421 habitations in Odisha are affected by poor quality of water, according to data from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
According to a report of the ministry, those areas are highly contaminated with harmful chemicals. Of the total of 157,013 habitations in Odisha, 2,421 are quality affected. Of the total habitations, 131 are partially covered in the state while a total of 154,461 have been fully covered under several rural water supply projects.
The states are bound to update the Centre on the issue of coverage of drinking water projects in the state and also about the poor quality of water as detected by their laboratories. As water is a state subject, under the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), this ministry provides technical and financial assistance to the states to improve the coverage of safe drinking water in rural areas.
The statistics from the ministry claims that the Central allocation for the project to the state has been on the rise since 2016-17. The Central data claims that Odisha was allocated Rs 114.99 crore in 2016-17 which was not fully utilized by the government and the Centre again allocated Rs 102.69 crore under the project. In the following years, Centre allocated Rs 154 crore and Rs 196 crore respectively.
The ministry data also claimed that the coverage of new habitations in the last three years stood at 8,196 in 2016-17, 4,007 in 2017-18 and 11,923 in 2018-19. Every year between February and March, Annual Action Plan (AAP) meetings are held.
