Following are excerpts from a New Indian Express article.

The State Government has targeted to complete 1,000 piped water supply projects under the ‘Jaldhara’ initiative to provide safe drinking water in the current financial year.

The ‘Jaldhara’ initiative is a major shift from hand pump tube-wells to pipe water supply scheme to ensure sustainable drinking water supply in rural areas. …

The Minister said 1,797 pipe water supply projects were proposed for 2007-08 out of which 1,153 projects have been completed and 28 more projects are under construction.

It is also proposed to construct overhead reservoir for all the piped water supply projects to ensure uninterrupted supply and improved services to rural people. With the availability of Rs 294 cr for accelerated rural water supply projects, the Government had proposed to cover 6,381 habitations in the current fiscal and by July-end 2,431 habitations have been covered.

The Minister said all the habitations having a population of more than 100 will be covered under Jaldhara.

The project will use water from the Ib river. Following is Samaja’s article on this.

New Indian Express reports on the water supply situation in Bhubaneswar. Following are some excerpts.

For a population of 8 lakh, the Capital city has just 52,000 connections each catering to a family of five to six persons. …

Not only does coverage need keep pace with expansion, there is an increasing necessity to modernise the entire system. Realising the need, both Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) are busy chalking out a plan.

The proposal is to be placed for consideration under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM).

Currently, Bhubaneswar meets its demand mostly from Kuakhai river, while the infrastructure for water treatment and distribution have come up in different phases. Mahanadi too contributes substantially for the city’s requirements.

As of now, the existing supply system fully covers 17 wards (out of 47) with pipe-water supply while another 26 wards are partially covered. The rest are without any cover.

A study carried out on the system reveals that supply is intermittent, while pipelines have shrunk. The total length of pipelines - main and distribution - are about 900 km in length.

However, since most of these were laid in 1950s and 1960s, they throw up problems. While density of population has increased, the same has rendered existing supply lines inadequate.

This also explains why water distribution has not been uniform - quantity as well as pressure wise. Moreover, main transmission lines are now old and lead contamination with sewerage lines which has become a cause of concern.

Similarly, intake infrastructure, water treatment plants and pump houses are now old and need renovation. The city has seven water treatment plants built during the last four decades.

Statistics available with PHED says seven treatment plants were built in 1954, 1960, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1987 and 1996 which speaks volumes about the need to upgrade and replace them.

Of the seven plants, four are for Kuakhai with total capacity of 19.5 million gallons for day (MGD), while the two for Daya can treat 3 MGD water.

It is the Mundali Water Works which has the biggest capacity of MGD. It was built in 1996.

Another problem with the locations and capacities of storage reservoirs. In the city, there are 87 underground and over ground reservoirs while there are another 46 elevated service tanks.

The headache for these storage points is that they are not integrated.

The proposed modernisation plan will take into account the revenue model as user charges are not fixed as per consumption level.

New Indian Express reports on the minister’s statement on this topic in the assembly. Following are some excerpts:

Rural Development Minister Biswabhusan Harichandan announced in the Assembly on Saturday that 1,722 drinking water projects would be taken up in the State during the current financial year.

… the minister said the State Government has written to the Centre to waive the 10 percent contribution of the beneficiaries under the Swajaldhara scheme. …

Observing that the Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) has been a huge success in Orissa, the minister said the State has secured the fifth position in the country in the implementation of the programme.

The Centre had sanctioned Rs 3,342.54 crore between 2000-01 and 2006-07 for construction of 3,723 roads having a length of 12,545.22 km, he said.

Harichandan announced that a target has been fixed for construction of 3,124- km road and upgradation of 2,798-km road under the PMGSY during the 2007-08 financial year.

Expenditure under the schemes funded by the awards of the Twelfth Finance Commission has also been satisfactory, Observing that the total sanitation programme is also a focus area of the government, the minister said Rs 8 crore has been provided in the budget for the programme in 2007-08.

He announced that 12 more divisions of the Rural Development department in addition to the present eight would be opened.