Bhubaneswar, May 9: Public health engineering organisation (Pheo) has decided to increase the daily per capita provision of water from 135 litres to 155 litres.

The officials recently held a high-level meeting to prepare the state annual action plan for 2016-17 where they have included provisions for the increased amount of water supply to the residents and planned to cover the left out areas by 2018.

"We have taken expertise from Gurgaon-based Engineers India Limited for preparation of the drinking water supply master plan for Bhubaneswar. The plan puts special emphasis on covering the slums that didn't have water supply," said an official of the housing and urban development department.

He said that for population growth, trend of past four to five years would be taken into consideration. "There are many projects lying incomplete in the city. We have decided to plan the upcoming projects in such a manner that these could be completed without problems and in two years," said the official.

According to the present situation of water supply in the city, over one lakh people of the nine lakh population here do not have access to the water supplied by the Pheo. Officials told The Telegraph that 34 of the 67 wards here are partially connected with the network.

Pheo superintending engineer Chittaranjan Jena said they were supplying nearly 295.30 million litres of water to the residents every day.

"Earlier when per capita provision was 135 litres per day, the requirement was 120.62 million litres. Now, that the provision has been increased, the requirement stands at 140 million litres per day," said Jena.

The supply of water is more than enough, even though more than 50 per cent of the water supplied by the organisation goes down the drain every day either due to leakages in the pipelines or thefts.

"Even after a loss of 50 per cent water, we still have nearly 147.65 million litres for the population against the present requirement of 140 million litres of water," he said. Based on the standard norms set by the Centre, water supply in a city such as Bhubaneswar should be 155 litres per capita per day.

However, the state government so far had stuck to its own 135 litres per capita per day. "According to standard norms, people in the city should get a minimum of 155 litres of water per day, but the state government used to follow its own rules. It is good that finally it has changed," said Bimal Panda, member of Regional Centre for Development Cooperation, a city-based non-government-organisation.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik in February this year had inaugurated five drinking water projects that benefited nearly 47,000 residents. Similarly in April, Naveen dedicated nearly 36 micro water projects that have benefited nearly 1.12 lakh residents of the city.

"A number of people, mainly slum dwellers, are yet to be brought under the pipe water network for which this master plan will prove to be a boon," said a Pheo official.

QUICK LOOK

♦ Population of city: 9.5 lakh
♦ Daily requirement: 140 million litres
♦ Daily water supply: 295.30 million litres
♦ Loss: Nearly 50 per cent
♦ Supply coverage: Out of 67 wards, 33 fully covered and 34 partially