BHUBANESWAR:
People of Raypur village under Satyabadi block in Puri district never imagined
that they would get purified water at their doorstep.
The
women folk, who were struggling everyday in the summer season to get drinking
water from a water body situated around 2 km away from their village, are now
happy with the purified tap water in their village.
There
are 137 people of 22 families living in the village. The village has only one
pond and a tube-well. When the water in the pond and tube-well got
contaminated, the clueless villagers fetched drinking water from Sukala Chhak,
around 2 km from their village.
After
getting information regarding the acute drinking water problem of the Raypur
village, members of the Regional Center for Development Cooperation (RCDC) with
the help of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) brought water
samples through the Society for Women Action Development (SWAD) in order to
test the level of contamination of the village water bodies.
After
the test, the officials found chloride, fluoride, iron, silica and arsenic
content in the water bodies of the village. Then they initiated their project
PRAYAS, an attempt to install such purification system providing drinking
water, in the village.
According
to RCDC programme manager Barsha Mishra, the estimation and design was made in
consultation with the villagers and an expert engineer. Necessary procedures
were adopted in order to obtain and install the water treatment system, she
added.
An
in-take well (about 200 mtr) was constructed in the bed of the Ratnachira
river. A pump house was built near the in-take well to lift water from it in
order to save water in two tanks (2,000 litre each) for purification. After
passing the stored water through sand-carbon-UV filter along with iron removal,
finally the water was made available to the villagers.
As
a gesture to respect the womenfolk in the village, responsibility has been
given to 11 women to oversee and manage the whole process of water supply. They
collect Rs 20 per user every month to raise the fund which would be used in
future for repairing of the water treatment plant.
“The
water in Raypur village is saline. After the construction of the intake well
and relative drinking water supply system, the community has been benefited as
they get clean drinking water,” said Mishra.
The story was published in The Pioneer English daily on July 4, 2014
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