Puri villagers relieved after purified water supplied

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