Mega drinking water project moves at a snail’s pace

Kendrapada: An ambitious mega drinking water supply project covering 280 villages in Jajpur district, the construction of which started a few years ago and was slated to be completed in 2023, is still moving at a snail’s pace, leaving villagers without drinking water amid peak summer.In 2021, the state govt had floated a tender for the Rs 418.87-crore project to provide drinking water to a population of 3.25 lakh under Jajpur and Binjharpur blocks. The work was awarded to a construction company, which promised to provide 57 million litres of water per day to the villagers upon completion in Dec 2023. But the delay in completing the project is causing problems for the villagers. “With each passing day, drinking water scarcity is becoming more acute. We have asked the authorities many times to speed up work but they did not pay any heed to our pleas,” Kanhu Charana Tarai, the sarpanch of Basudevpur panchayat, said.When contacted, Satyabrat Panigrahi, superintending engineer of rural water supply and sanitation department (Jajpur), said, “We have already completed 80% of the work by laying pipelines and building water tanks in many panchayats. The project will be completed within this year.”“We want to see quick completion of the project,” Swadhin Jena of Jamadhar village said.“Large numbers of villagers are dependent on a few tubewells and wells at the moment for water,” Ranjan Behera of Jamadhar village said.Around 25 families of Ransol village fitted motor pumps in a century-old deep well to lift water. “The well in our village is our lifeline. Every day we collect water from there. We need more deep wells,” Nihar Ranjan Jena (76) of Ransol village said.