Cuttack, May 10: The state government today sought from Orissa High Court time till December end to provide drinking water facility to all the anganwadi centres (AWCs) in the state, which do not have the facility.

Principal secretary of the rural development department Surendra Nath Tripathy sought time till December 31, 2011, while tendering “unconditional apology for delay in total compliance of order” in an affidavit filed today.

“It will not be possible to undertake any work for installation of tube wells in rains due to inaccessibility of remote areas where the centres are located and fluctuation of ground water level. Moreover, the rig owners usually withdraw their machines in rains for maintenance,” Tripathy said.

The two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra deferred order on the affidavit to Friday. The high court is monitoring provision of drinking water facilities at anganwadi centres while adjudicating a PIL on implementation of the special nutrition programme (SNP) and the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme.

Taking note of allegations that drinking water was not available in 9,543 centres, the high court, on March 8, directed the rural development department to drill adequate number of tube wells on war footing basis and ensure supply of pure drinking water.

On May 4, the high court found that its order had not been complied with and bore wells had been drilled in only 233 centres that did not have the drinking water facility within 250 metres. The high court had then given the government “one more opportunity, as a last chance…to file an affidavit by May 10 to comply with the direction issued on March 8 issued by the court”.

Tripathy, in his affidavit, said that the chief engineer of the rural water supply department had prepared a detail action plan to provide drinking water facilities to all the 8,050 centres (2,776 on government premises and 5,274 in private accommodation) by the end of December 2011 and work had already been taken up on war footing basis.