Cuttack, May 2: In response to a PIL that has sought intervention for safe drinking water in both rural and urban areas of the state within three weeks, Orissa High Court asked the government to file its reply.

The PIL contended that Odisha had already become "water stressed state" where people faced acute drinking water shortage every year with the arrival of summer, and there were many habitations which "don't have either pipe water line or tube wells". It has said that more than 30 per cent of the households have to travel nearly 1km to fetch drinking water and more than 60 per cent of households depend on community well and hand pumps.

Social activist Chittaranjan Mohanty, 65, along with Odia Yuva Manch president Rohan Kumar Mohanty, 37, and Odisha Rationalist Society secretary Debendra Sutar, 48, filed the PIL. The petition was taken up on April 29.

"After a preliminary hearing, the division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B.R. Sarangi posted the matter to after three weeks for hearing, along with the response of the state government," petitioner counsel Kshirod Rout said today.

"The bench accordingly issued notices to the secretaries of state water resources, energy and panchayati raj departments, and engineer-in-chief of the rural water supply and sanitation," Rout said.

According to the petition, the demand for water from various sectors is increasing with rising population vis-a-vis urbanisation and the consequential increase in demand for water due to growth in mining and industrial activities.

"But, the degradation in quality of water resources by direct and indirect human interference such as discharge of untreated or partially treated industrial and urban waste water, organic and inorganic wastes, run-off from agriculture, mining, etc is resulting in increased ground water contamination and depletion. This is making the water resources scarce," the PIL contends.

The petition alleged that the depletion of ground water had turned into "an area of major concern" due to the state government's "faulty industrial policy, nepotism, corruption, illegalities and irregularities in management of water resources as well as excess use of ground water for industrial use".

"In number of cases, tube wells stop gilding water during the summer when the water table falls, adding to the woes of the people," the petition alleged.