The threat of an acute drinking water crisis is looming large over Adityapur township, its adjoining industrial areas and Gamharia.

Thanks to mismanagement and lackadaisical attitude of officials of drinking water and sanitation department, the Sitarampur reservoir - on the banks of the Kharkai river in Gamharia that supplies water to the filtration plant in Adityapur - has lost it storage capacity owing to accumulation of silt. Besides, the sluice gates of the dam have remained defunct for two years now.

Executive engineer of drinking water and sanitation department, Adityapur division, Nazar-e-Imam conceded that the storage capacity of Sitarampur dam had been reduced because of accumulated silt and that the sluice gates were damaged.

'We had written to the department concerned last year for sanctioning funds to repair the sluice gates. We had made an estimate of Rs 1.4 crore, but no step was initiated by the department. This time, too, it looks like that drinking water supply will be a major problem,' he added.

Spread over an area of 120 acres, the Sitarampur dam caters to 500,000 people.

On whether silt had been cleared every five years as is the norm, another senior official of the department's Adityapur division admitted that desiltation work had never been carried out ever since the Sitarampur dam came into existence in 1962.

To maintain supply to the filtration plant, the department had set up an intake well at Bhua. But, receding water level in the Kharkai during the summer months also takes a toll and the intake well cannot pump adequate water to the dam.

'For the past two years, drinking water supply to our households has been an acute problem. This time also we are expecting a similar crisis,' Rashmi Priya Devi, a resident of Adityapur Housing Colony, told The Telegraph.

Steel city-based NGO Jan Kalyan Morcha, which looks after the civic problems of Adityapur, has taken an initiative to redress the drinking water problem.

The outfit's president Om Prakash has written to the drinking water and sanitation department's headquarters in Ranchi to arrange for drawing water from Subarnarekha's Chandil dam to Kharkai river so that the water level in Sitarampur reservoir can be maintained.

'We have sent a petition to use water from Chandil dam,' Prakash added.

What should be done to revive Sitarampur reservoir?

Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com