A woman waits for drinking water in Paradip. Telegraph picture

Paradip, May 18: The port town is going through an unprecedented water crisis, which can be termed as the worst in recent memory, as residents of this township, as well as its adjoining slums, have been left without a proper water supply for the last 48 hours.

Not only the supply of water has become erratic, but the quality of water supplied in the last 48 hours has also been very poor. Residents allege that the water they are getting for the last two days is full of impure particles, posing threat to human health. Health officials have issued an alert asking residents to drink water only after boiling it.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded Rs 90-crore modernisation and renovation programme of Taladanda canal, the lifeline of the bustling industrial hub, has allegedly triggered the drinking water scarcity.

There is a virtual breakdown of daily pipe water supply, which is provided by the public health engineering wing of the Paradip Port Trust. The water that is being supplied is full of muddy and waste contents, and is considered unfit for human consumption.

“The water that is being supplied now is unsafe for human health and is exposed to contamination. We advise the people to boil it before using it for drinking purpose. Though water-borne diseases are yet to spurt up, it is certain that there would be outbreak of diarrhoeal diseases if people consume this water directly,” said Bibhuti Biswal, chief medical officer of the government-run Biju Memorial Hospital here.

As a fallout of the crisis, drinking water pouches and mineral water bottles have vanished from the market here. As pipe water is replete with impurities, residents here have resorted to buying packaged water. This sudden spurt in the sale of packaged drinking water has led to exhaustion of existing stock of water pouches and packaged water bottles.

“There has been drastic fall in the water level both at the Taladanda canal and the three water-carrying reservoirs in here. As against the town’s 3 million gallon litres of daily requirement of drinking water, hardly 1 million gallon litres are being generated everyday,” said Niranjan Patra, executive engineer, public health engineering department (environment and civil) of the Paradip Port Trust.

“To meet with the exigencies of the situation, we have shot off an urgent message for release of additional stock of water from the canal. The water supply situation here is getting bad day by day. At the moment, things are beyond our control. Unless the Mahanadi (south) irrigation division responds to our request, we won’t be able to restore normality water supply,” Patra added.