Jagatsinghpur: The district administration has drawn up a Rs 143 crore plan to provide safe drinking water in 123 water-scarce villages in the district.

The villages that are being covered under the rural piped drinking water project are located within the jurisdiction of Balikuda, Erasama and Naugaon blocks. The pipe water project is coming up in villages which are perennially water deficient pockets, said executive engineer, rural water sanitation scheme, Chitta Ranjan Jena. The preliminary work on the water project has started. The contract has been awarded to the construction agency through tender-bidding. The earmarked villages are being surveyed for construction of overhead tanks and laying of underground pipelines. The project would be ready by next year, Jena said. An official said the groundwater table in most of these villages had dipped considerably and the government-dug tube wells in these areas were turning defunct one after the other. Besides the water sourced from these areas have saline contents, he said.

"Salinity is a problem in these seaside villages resulting in salinated water in deep wells as well. There are some villages where tube wells have gone dry. To meet with the emergent situation, the department has pressed into service water tankers in water-scarce villages. Of the 1320 villages in Jagatsinghpur district, 495 villages are partially hit by drinking crisis. "We are trying to resolve the water crisis by drilling deep-dug tube wells and reactivating the dysfunctional tube wells, an official said.