Safe drinking water for all :It's far from being a reality in Assam

GUWAHATI: Safe drinking water for all is far from being a reality in Assam. A reality check shows – 8,122 of the 9,420 rural piped water supply schemes taken up in the State have been completed so far. While 5,834 of the completed schemes are functioning, 2,288 are (28 per cent of the completed schemes) are defunct. As many as 1,298 other schemes have been under construction.

This is not all. The National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) of the Union Ministry of Drinking and Sanitation has not been able to reach a large number of rural habitations in the State.

The worst is that the Centre has barred the State PHE from taking up any new rural water supply schemes till the completion of the under construction schemes. PHE (Public Health Engineering) is the nodal department for supplying safe drinking water to rural habitations in the State. Such a ban on taking up any new water supply scheme in the State has been imposed as the department has not been able to complete as many as 1,298 schemes. The sad reflection of such a ban is that not a single piped rural water supply scheme has been taken up by the PHE in fiscal 2018-19. The huge number of 2,288 defunct piped water supply schemes in the State is an indication that there is lack of proper upkeep of the complete schemes.

Assam has brought 88,047 rural habitations under the NRDWP of the Union Ministry of Drinking and Sanitation. While 54,754 rural habitations have been fully covered, 23,632 habitations have been covered partially. To one's dismay, even now as many as 9,931 rural habitations in the State are supplied with arsenic, fluoride and iron contaminated water. While iron contaminated water is found in 5,290 rural habitations, the arsenic contaminated water is found in 4,367 habitations and fluoride contaminated water is reported from 267 habitations in the State. Seven other habitations in the State are found to have heavy metal contaminated water. Around 37.43 lakh rural population in the State is affected by such contamination.

Also Read: Top Headlines