Bhubaneswar, July 20: The Public Health Engineering Organisation has come up with a monsoon plan to ensure smooth supply of drinking water to those living in the city's low-lying areas that often gets flooded during rains.

According to the plan, control rooms will be set up at public health offices to act on complaints lodged by residents. One nodal officer will monitor the functioning of these control rooms.

At present, the city has three such control rooms functioning at Vani Vihar, Saheed Nagar and one behind the secretariat. Public Health Engineering Organisation officials have also put a round the clock surveillance and monitoring system in place. There will be dedicated manpower at treatment plants to facilitate immediate restoration in case of breakdown.

Incessant rain during monsoon submerges the low-lying areas of Acharya Vihar, Nayapalli, Behera Sahi, Jayadev Vihar, Bhimatangi, Jagamohan Nagar, Bomikhal, Laxmi Sagar, Soubhagya Nagar, Palasuni, Nayapally and Old Town.

Nayapally resident Rabindra Parida said following a heavy rain several parts of his locality remain waterlogged for days. This leads power failure and even water supply to these places is affected.

"If there is no electricity, there is no water. Safe drinking water has become a necessity during monsoon in such situations. I hope that the plan of the administration works," said Parida.

Public Health Engineering Organisation superintending engineer Chittaranjan Jena told The Telegraph that a mobile squad had also been kept ready to handle any kind of exigencies.

"Our job is to ensure smooth water supply to the people for which this action plan has been prepared," said Jena. He added that low-lying areas have been identified and if any emergency arises, Public Health Engineering Organisation would take immediate measures.

"Water tankers have been kept on stand-by and they will be despatched to the affected areas in case incessant rain leads to flooding of the areas," Jena said.

Sources said the Public Health Engineering Organisation had nearly 100 such tankers to tackle emergency situations. Moreover, officials have also decided to put up plastic water tanks in vulnerable areas during emergencies.

"Plastic tanks will be put in place to take care of water-related problems," said Jena.

A quality testing mechanism has been put in place to avoid contamination of water and spread of water-borne diseases. To do that, mobile units have been deployed to collect water samples from vulnerable points and test them.

The supplement these efforts, the civic body has also initiated steps such as de-silting drains and cleaning the 10 natural drainage channels to avoid flood in the low-lying areas.

"We have completed cleaning and de-silting work and ensured that the low-lying areas are not be affected due to heavy rain," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

♦ All hand pumps, tube wells, production wells, pumping machines, electrical and mechanical installations should be in working condition
♦ Adequate quantity of bleaching powder should be distributed in vulnerable areas
♦ All hand pumps, tube wells and production wells be disinfected during pre and post-flood situation
♦ All storage reservoirs, both overhead and underground, be cleaned and disinfected before July end
♦ Diesel generator sets kept ready at vulnerable areas to run smaller capacity pumps during power failure