With an eye on safe, potable drinking water for every rural household ahead of the upcoming polls, the Odisha state cabinet, headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, cleared five rural piped water supply projects worth Rs 3,200 crores.
The projects are set to be completed within two years, benefitting over 15 lakh people who reside in areas affected by mining-related issues and excess ground salinity. These will be funded by the District Mineral Foundation (DMF), Odisha Mineral Bearing Areas Development Corporation (OMBADC), the state’s own Basudha scheme, and Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) under Nabard.
Hyderabad based NCC-Limited has been deputed the task to lay the pipelines for the water supply project to Chhendipada, Talcher and Kaniha blocks in the Angul district – and will benefit almost 3.40 lakh people from around 388 villages. Infrastructure giant L&T has been roped in to provide the Rs 979.42 crore pipeline project in mining-affected Keonjhar district. L&T’s work is expected to cover 4.13 lakh people from 589 villages in the district. L&T will also work on a construction project in tribal-dominated Rairangpur and Jashipur blocks in Mayurbhanj district, worth Rs 430 crores, which will benefit 1.61 lakh people.
To resolve the potable water crisis in four blocks of the Bhadrak district, the Cabinet approved of a Rs 754 crore tender to be implemented by Hyderabad based Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Limited. This will reach out to 6.16 lakh people under 525 villages in those four blocks. In the Bolagarh and Begunia blocks under the Dhenkanal district, Mumbai-based JMC Projects and JWIL Limited will jointly construct two water supply projects worth Rs 315 crores.
These projects come amidst a wide range of announcements revealed by the government in the run-up to the Lok Sabha, as well as the State Assembly polls, which are scheduled in the course of a few months. Access to safe drinking water is one of the basic indices of social development, and once the projects have been successfully implemented, Odisha will surely rise on the HDI index, too.