Bhubaneswar: The ongoing water crisis in the state can potentially thwart the state government’s preventive measures against Covid-19, experts and environmentalists said.
“Of late, several cities and districts of Odisha have been recording temperatures upto 40 degrees Celsius. Water crisis is now looming large in the state. Several areas in the state are now reeling under shortage of water while in some other areas people do not find water in their proximity,” said Ranjan Panda, environmentalist from the state.
He also added, “Under such circumstances, preventive measures like frequent hand-washing and sanitation would be a dream for many. These methods, recommended by the government, will not be practicable in such water scarce areas.”
According to data furnished by Jal Shakti Ministry in Lok Sabha in February 2020, Odisha has a total of 81,25,852 rural households out of which only 3,19,955 households have been supplied with piped water. A whopping 78,05,897 households in the state were not served with piped water till April 2019.
Other experts claim that the global pandemic has posed new challenge to the environment in terms of unscientific disposal of masks and gloves used by common people. “The bad and unscientific disposal of masks has emerged as a new threat to the environment. Several people never bother to dump the used masks and gloves on road side, at public places and also in water bodies. Such actions can affect the environment and create new health and environment issues,” said Sankar Prasad Pani, lawyer, National Green Tribunal (NGT).
Pani said that people need to learn scientific way of disposing the same and the government also need to create more awareness on the issue to ward off the menace.
It’s a fact that haphazard disposal of masks in rivers and streams would not only aggravate water pollution but also obstruct the natural flow of water and create other issues. With the Covid-19 taking more time than normal contagious diseases take to die down, unsustainable ways of disposal of masks and water woes will only escalate the problems.
Manish Kumar, OP