Mayurbhanj faces scarcity of clean drinking water

People in Arjunsahi village are resorted to using visibly dirty water for their everyday need due to unavailability of well, tube well or clean drinking water resource in their area.

A large number of women, carrying utensils over their heads and walking through farm fields is not an uncommon sight in the region; however, despite all these efforts they have to make do with an unhygienic shallow-dug water pit, which also provides them with unclean water for their daily needs.

One of the villagers said, "Sometimes we see insects in the water we collect. We want the government to give us tubewells so that we get clean groundwater."

Srimathy Manjhi, a human right activist from the area also echoed similar sentiments and said, "This is a place where water scarcity is the major problem. Government promises a lot of things but even pure drinking water is not available in the area. They are forcing to use water which is not fit for drinking and is unhygienic. The government must do something."

Last year in November, the Odisha government had declared drought of moderate and severe nature in 19 districts of the state. The calamity covers a total crop area of 2.33 lakh hectares covering 5,533 villages of 66 blocks in nine districts namely - Nabarangpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Nuapara, Sambalpur and Sundergarh.

This year, the southwest monsoon is expected to hit Odisha coast within two weeks after its onset in Kerala in early June.