Bhubaneswar, April 15: The BJP today sought the governor's intervention in addressing the drinking water shortage in the state.

A delegation, led by BJP state president Basanta Panda, met governor S.C. Jamir and apprised him of the prevailing water situation. "The governor said he would discuss the matter with the state government," said Panda.

He said: "During our mass contact programme Jana Kalyan Yatra, we saw the rural women walking miles towards their home while carrying potable water on their head."

The party had launched the mass contact programme from April 7 which covered eight districts.

The memorandum, submitted to the governor, stated that the state government's piped water supply scheme covered only 1.3 per cent of the rural households, which number around 81.73 lakh.

Similarly, only 10,137 rural piped water supply schemes cover only 17,210 villages out of total 1,57 lakh villages across the state. A target has been set in 2016-17 budget to set up 600 new water supply project and revive 500 existing projects, which can cover 1,500 more villages at the best. Thus, at most, some 18,710 villages can be covered by the water supply projects in total.

"Around 88 per cent villages are yet to get drinking water provisions," said the BJP memorandum.

A meagre sum of Rs 150 crore has been provided in the current year's budget for the urban water supply, it added.

When the scarcity of potable drinking water scarcity has hit the state, jaundice has been detected in the chief minister's municipal ward in the capital city, said BJP leaders.

"If serious and urgent steps are not taken from now, the situation will be alarming in the coming days", warned Panda.

But the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre had not provided a single pie to Odisha in the union budget for drinking water supply scheme.