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Regular-article-logo Saturday, 19 July 2025

Plug the hole, let dry taps run

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BIBHUTI BARIK Published 16.03.13, 12:00 AM

Bhubaneswar, March 15: The city is plagued both by misuse and scarcity of water. Nearly 100 million litres per day (MLPD) of the Public Health Engineering Organisation’s (PHEO) daily supply of 250 MLPD go to waste.

Many areas in the city still don’t have pipe water supply. Therefore, the housing and urban development department is starting a “network modelling” exercise to find out the status of water supply and the problems in distribution.

The exercise, undertaken by a Bangalore-based consultancy firm, will tell the Public Health Engineering Organisation (PHEO) which areas are getting more water than required, where water is scarce and other distribution problems. The need for this exercise arose because of the colossal wastage of pipe water.

While so much water goes to waste, many areas, such as Pahala, Johala, Sundarpada and Dumduma suffer from water scarcity.

Residents are the worst sufferers. “So much water is wasted every day. The PHEO should reach out to more areas with their pipe water supply,” said Loknath Dash, a corporate employee and resident of Pokhariput.

PHEO superintending engineer Chitta Ranjan Jena told The Telegraph: “We have a mandate to supply water to localities that fall within our network. Urbanisation has resulted in the development of many colonies on the outskirts of the city, but we can only supply water to them in a phase-wise manner. All the colonies developed either by the Odisha State Housing Board and the Bhubaneswar Development Authority are arranging for water supply on their own. If they still need water from our treatment plants, we can supply it to them.”

To areas that are not covered by the PHEO’s water network, the organisation sends tankers. These tankers are constantly filled with water from the various treatment plants and sent to these areas.

“We have 15 vehicles with tanks to supply water. Fifteen more will be requisitioned so that all areas get adequate water supply. We might start from the first week of April, but are awaiting a nod from civic authorities,” Jena said.

Another senior PHEO engineer said that to minimise misuse and maximise the reach of pipe water, a metering system was needed.

In 2008, for Saheed Nagar, and again in 2011 for Unit-III, pilot projects for water meters were implemented. But several problems cropped up and neither of the projects made much headway.

PHEO sources said that while there are about 70,000 registered consumers, there are more than 15,000 illegal connections. Only 700 connections have been metered.

Krushna Chandra Sethy, councillor of ward No. 57, said: “Water scarcity is a common feature of summer that people have to deal with. The water pipeline coming from Khandagiri could take some more time to reach our locality. The PHEO should complete the work as soon as possible.”

The PHEO superintending engineer said: “Many areas in Bhimatangi and Sundarpada get water supply from Mulapadia. A pipeline carrying water from Mundali will add to this.”

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