Odisha block to have rural water supply in every village

Hinjili block in chief minister Naveen Patnaik's constituency in Ganjam district will soon become the first block in Odisha with rural water supply projects in every village next month.
Of the 56 revenue villages in the block, rural water supply projects have already been completed in 54 villages.
Two other projects are in different stages of compleetion and expected to be completed next month, Executive Engineer, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS), Berhampur, Sitaram Panda, said.
RWSS engineers have also set a target for construction of water projects in every village in Sheragada block in the same constituency by the end of March 2015.

Of the 94 villages in Sheragada block, rural pipe water projects have already been completed in 68 villages.
Work in other 34 projects are going on in full swing and expected to be completed in time, he said.

Meanwhile, the state government has sanctioned setting up of 80 more rural drinking water projects for Ganjam district in 2014-15. In every block, at least four projects would be set up.
"Since Hinjili and Sheragada blocs have water projects in every village, the proposed projects will be distributed in the rest 20 blocks in equal manner", said an engineer.
The fund for new projects was yet to be sanctioned. The cost of each project varied from Rs 40 lakh to Rs one crore depending on the population to be catered to, the executive engineer said.

Presently, 1046 rural water supply projects are functioning in the district and almost all of them were damaged due to Cyclone Phailin. But the projects have since been repaired, Panda said.
The new projects are being constructed with overhead tanks and same provision would be made in 350 old projects as well. "Water supply from the projects will not be disrupted due to power failure in the area as supply is made from stored water in the overhead tanks", he said.