Newsletter No. 64;
IRBMS
km from state capital Raipur, around 89 villages improve the situation, but all in vain. Frustrated
are facing acute water crisis as groundwater level with
dropped severely causing drying up of tube wells of Mayurbhanj district
across the district. Villagers are to go miles to fetch agitation several times but to no avail. The
drinking water as acute water crisis hits many department has been supplying water to some
villages. The district is facing water crisis with areas through tankers. As there is no alternative
dried up of number of borewells in the districts source to supply drinking water immediately, Govt.
with temperature rising to 42 o Celsius. The Govt. have been dispatching water tankers.
watershed management department has totally The water level is going down. Temperatures have
failed with all its programs the locals are hit 41 o Celsius in Mayurbhanj.
disappointed with govt. officials’ apathy.
include
Gariyaband,
ongoing
crisis,
have
residents
shown
West Bengal Rivers are becoming not
Other districts in Chhattisgarh are facing water
crisis
the
suitable for Bathing
Dhamtari, The pollution in rivers is becoming way of life in
Mahasamund, Durg, Korba, Raigarh, Surguja and India. Increasing river pollution is making many
Balrampur. rivers in Bengal not suitable for bathing. River
Ganges is so polluted that it is now officially unfit
Mayurbhanj District, Orissa Facing severe
for bathing in many places in the state.
water crisis. According to the latest State of Environment
Acute water shortage has also hit Odisha's Report, published by the West Bengal Pollution
Mayurbhanj from Control Board (WBPCB), in 17 major rivers of the
Bhubaneswar. With intense heat condition prevails State, including the Ganges, the levels of coliform
across Odisha, rural areas in the state are facing an bacteria (found mainly in human feces) are much
impending water crisis. While the wells in the higher than the permissible limit.
localities have gone dry, the stand posts do not “Regular monitoring reveals that the rivers are
yield water. The women are forced to travel to far hardly fit for bathing as per the standard fixed by
off places to fetch buckets of water from other the Government of India,” said the report, based
areas for drinking purposes. The water supply by on the data gathered in 2015.
the state's Public Health Engineering Department The report states that several stretches of the
is also highly erratic. The residents of the district Ganges, known as Bhagirathi and Hooghly in the
have lodged complaints with the PHED office to region (two tributaries of the Ganges), have a total
district,
around
300
km
4
Integrated River Basin Management Society