ROURKELA: The Rourkela Steel Plant is the centre of an industrial township of 1.2 lakh people. A good 1 lakh people live in the slums around it. The difference is of course capital, and the municipal limits of the township separate the haves and the have nots. While people living within the township have water throughout the year, those in the slums crowd the few tubewells and live from day to day.
The Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) has an agreement with the state government to cater to the water needs of the slum-dwellers as well, but then water is precious and won’t be given away just like that.
A 500 km piped water supply network caters to the township’s 24,500 staff quarters and 5,675 shops. However, it does not provide household connections to the 194 unauthorised slums.
Grocer Munna sees the supply pipelines of the steel plant leaking everywhere. “But we don’t have enough for bathing and cooking,” he says.
In summer, the RSP pumps over 81 million litres per day (MLD) to its workers, executives and their families. During rest of the year, the demand falls to 70 MLD. The Rourkela Municipal Corporation, which caters to a 3.2 lakh population beyond the township, manages with 48 lakh MLD provided by the Public Health & Engineering Organisation.
Not that there is no water rationing in summer for the fortunate citizens of RSP. Supply is kept to two hours twice each day. But for the rest of the year, the cup pretty much brims over and there is no conservation system in place. One RSP employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, “There are no taps in the supply pipelines and overhead tanks do not have floating valves. Since water is supplied round-the-clock during the non-summer months, most of it is wasted.”
The Rourkela Steel Plant Executives’ Association (RSPEA) president Bimal Bisi said RSP must inspect all staff quarters to see if taps and overhead tanks are fitted with automatic floating vales. “Water supply to about 1,000 vacant staff quarters must be stopped right away,” he said.
Water wastage is not just confined to the township. Inside the steel plant itself, a huge volume of water goes down the drain as the discharge points do not have taps. Supply mains leak everywhere. Inside the plant, most of the 22 canteens and numerous toilets across all the departments do not have taps and water is wasted on a round the clock basis.
A steel city and its slums
The growth of Rourkela city, blessed by two rivers Koel and Brahmani, is linked with the birth of the country’s first public sector integrated steel plant, the Hindustan Steel Company Ltd, which was later renamed as the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP).
Rourkela was declared as a Notified Area Council (NAC) by Odisha’s health department in 1955 and two separate townships were created with a complicated jurisdiction. When the NAC was transferred to the Housing & Urban Development Department in 1963, it was bifurcated into NAC (Civil Township, NAC-CT) and NAC (Steel Township, NAC-ST).
While NAC (ST) was meant for the captive township of RSP, NAC (CT) was responsible for the delivery of basic services to Rourkela town. In 1988, the HUD Department upgraded NAC (CT) into the Rourkela Municipality.
In April 1995, the NAC (ST) was abolished and the Odisha Government declared the captive township of RSP as the Rourkela Industrial Township of (RIT) invoking the Industrial Township Act, 1994 under which territorial jurisdiction was exclusively vested with RSP. It was also agreed upon in writing that RSP would provide all basic amenities to inhabitants living within the RIT limits.
In November 2014, the Rourkela Municipality became the Rourkela Municipal Corporation, with an area of 52 sq km and population of 3.2 lakh. Incidentally, Rourkela city is considered a water-surplus city. Against a peak demand of 48 MLD, it has a filtration capacity of nearly 70 MLD. It draws water from the Koel and Brahmani rivers through five intake wells.
On the other hand, the RIT limits of RSP, spread over 19 sectors, has a population of about 2.20 lakh. The steel plant’s piped water supply is confined to its 19 sectors. The RSP receives flak from the Odisha state government for failing to provide piped water and other basic amenities to its slum population of one lakh.