NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee report shows that there are over 19,000 villages in the country that have undrinkable water and the government failed to provide them temporary facilities such as tankers water. These habitations are affected by arsenic, fluoride, iron, salinity, nitrate and other heavy metals. However, the government successfully provided temporary measures to fluoride and arsenic-affected villages while water contaminated with iron, salinity, nitrate and other metals is almost ignored.
The standing committee report on the Ministry of Jal Shakti-Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation laid bare the fact that thousands of villages in the country have contaminated water sources and the government has failed to provide even a temporary source of safe drinking water until piped water is supplied.
It also underlined that the delay in the release of funds is a major reason behind providing few villagers with temporary resources. The government has provided some interim measures such as installing community water purification plants in over 1,000 villages where water sources are infected with arsenic and fluoride. In these areas, potable water up to about 10 litres per capita per day is provided to meet their drinking and cooking requirements.
Most habitations’ drinking water sources are contaminated with iron and salinity. Assam (6,749) is at the top of the list followed by Odisha (1,118) with a number of villages where drinking water sources are affected by iron.
The other states affected by iron contamination are Tripura (326), Uttar Pradesh (209), Bihar (66) and Kerala (58).
Rajasthan topped the list of the largest number of habitations affected by nitrate and salinity. There are 8,840 villages affected by salinity and 436 villages affected by nitrate contamination in the state.
The report shows that the government has only provided around 5% villages with temporary measures like tankers or setting up community water purification plants.