RAYAGADA: Potable drinking water is a long-pending demand of Baladia villagers but they do not know if it would be fulfilled ever. Baladia village under Sikarpai gram panchayat in Kalyansinghpur block has 75 tribal families with a population of 300 people. With the ground water almost depleted for lack of rain, the villagers have been left high and dry. In the past, the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) wing had dug up 10 hand pumps in the village but none could yield water.
There is a tube-well in the campus of the village primary school but does not even pump out a bucket of water in an hour. With no other way out, villagers collect water from a nearby nullah during summer and winter, but the source gets polluted in monsoon.
Tili Praska, a local, said they have been approaching the administration and elected representatives for a solution to the crisis but in vain. Subash Wadaka, another villager said the piped water supply scheme could have been extended to Baladia from Sikarpai village which is just one km away. “But, officials are not willing to explore options. There is a pump house installed at Jani Sahi of Sikarpai village from where water can be brought to Baladia through pipes”, he said.