Residents of Khaprakhol in Balangir wait for water around a tap. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, May 21: Prevailing heat conditions in the state has made the government to provide mid-day meal to primary schoolchildren between 8am and 8.30am with immediate effect.

Though the schools have been closed for the summer vacation, mid-day meal is being provided to 22.74 lakh students in 50,176 schools in 28 of 30 drought-hit districts. If the condition worsened, the district collectors had been empowered to even suspend the programme, said chief secretary Bijay Patnaik after chief minister Naveen Patnaik reviewed the measures being taken by the government in view of the heat wave, which has already claimed five lives.

Anganwadi centres, which provide cooked meals to pregnant women and children, too, have been asked to close their operation by 9am, so that the beneficiaries are not put to inconvenience.

The torrid summer has triggered a drinking water shortage across the state, especially in the hilly tracts of western and southern region, with the fall in ground water table. Even the residents of Balangir town in western Odisha are experiencing drinking water scarcity, as the water intake well in the Mahanadi basin at Nandamal near Sonepur has dried up. The government has drafted water tankers even in the rural areas to meet the situation. “Our thrust is to ensure potable drinking water to every corner. We have asked the district collectors to arrange as many tankers as possible. Money is not going to be a problem,” said the chief secretary.

A major part of the state has been reeling from heat wave for the past one week, with the mercury hovering between 40 degrees Celcius and 45 degrees Celsius. Titilagarh in Balangir recorded 46.5 degrees Celsius on May 18, the highest temperature recorded in the state during the season. Weathermen have predicted prevailing conditions to continue for the next four to five days and attributed the phenomenon to the hot wind blowing from the north western direction and absence of a strong sea breeze.

Acute drinking water scarcity has been reported from Junagarh area in Kalahandi ditrict, Boden and Komna in Nuapada district, Muribahal, Tureikela and Bongomunda in Balangir district, Birmaharajpur in Sonepur district, Rengali, Jujumura and Naktideul in Sambalpur district, Lakhanpur in Jharsuguda district, Jharbandh and Paikmal in Bargarh district and Barkote and Tileibani in Deogarh district.

“Getting drinking water has been very difficult for us as ponds and wells have dried up. Even the tubewells are not working,” said Binod Bihari Badpanda from Tampargarh village in Jujumura block.

There are around 3.23 lakh tube wells and sanitary wells in rural areas and over 26,000 hand pumps in urban areas. However, most of these tube wells are reportedly defunct because of lack of repair or fall in ground water level. According to official sources, 252 water tankers have been engaged in rural areas and 354 in urban areas.

A senior official in the rural development department said that more than 1.21 lakh defunct tube wells and 3,517 defunct rural water supply projects had been repaired this season. As many as 776 mobile vans have been deployed to undertake instant repair.

The urban development department said a total of 26,593 hand pumps were in working condition.

Transport department officials were directed to ask the operators to avoid plying their buses during peak heat hours and prevent overloading of passengers. They were also instructed to ensure that the buses would carry potable drinking water. All government hospitals have been asked to make special arrangements for the victims of heat wave.