2 YRS ON, N’PADA ANTI-FLUORIDE PROJECT STILL NONSTARTER
Wednesday, 22 February 2017 | Ajit Panda | NUAPADA | in Bhubaneswar
An ambitious project of the Government of Odisha to provide fluoride-free potable water to the people of affected areas of Nuapada district is yet to be started even though more than two years have elapsed since it was declared.
It was declared in 2015 that the project would be completed in two years with financial assistance of Rs 540 crore from Nabard, but it is yet to take up. Consequently, people in the district continue to depend on groundwater with high fluoride content.
“Tube well water of our village contains high degree of fluoride, which is beyond the permissible limit of 1 ppm and it is the cause of the silent killer disease - fluorosis,” said Prafulla Behera (53), a resident of Karlakot village of Boden block, who became crippled due to fluorosis in 1998.
“Mine was the first case of fluorosis to be detected in the district in 1998. I developed pain in neck and waist initially. The hospitals in the district failed to diagnose the cause and I was finally admitted to the Seven Hills Hospital in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). The doctors detected that it was fluorosis,” he added.
By that time, he was already in a wheel chair due to bend waist and stiff neck. Gradually it was known that fluorosis is widespread in many villages like Karlakot and most of the people are affected by dental and skeletal fluorosis.
According to the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) Department of Odisha, out of the total 2,784 habitations in Nuapada district, 905 are fluoride affected. The rest 1,872 are non-fluoride habitations. “The RWSS has made a provision for providing fluoride free water in the fluoride affected 905 habitations,” informed a department official. The department sources further inform that out of the 905 habitations, 250 have pipe water supply from surface water sources, 543 have water filtration plants fitted in the tube wells and 12 habitations have sanitary wells. The people of fluoride affected village, however, do not agree with these data.
“We are still dependant on the fluoride affected tube wells of our village,” say the people of Larka of Boden block. Likewise, the villagers of Sardhapur village say that the plant fitted in their village is defunct.
“Not only in Sardhapur, but the plants in almost all villages are defunct,” says Khirasindhu Sagaria, an activist. “If all the 905 habitations have already been covered, then what was the need of the Nabard project,” he asks. It is learnt that RWSS is planning to construct 381 mega drinking water supply projects in all those villages where the water filtration plants have been installed.
Earlier, the State Government had set 2013 as the deadline to supply safe drinking water to all the fluoride affected villages. The department claims that 34 pipe water supply projects were completed in last four years, which cover 98 habitations. But Sanjay Tiwari, a resident of Bendrabahal village, contests the claim. “What do they mean by completion? They have constructed an overhead tank in Bargaon village but the tank has not yet been connected to the pump installed in the river,” he explains.
Fluoride is silently killing thousands of people of the district, but it cannot be confirmed in absence of authentic data. Neither the RWSS nor the Health and Family Welfare Department can provide reliable data on the quality of the water sources and impact of fluoride. “No one can say whether the fluoride content is increasing. On the contrary, there is no effort to revive traditional water bodies which are ecologically functioning systems to a recharge the ground water level,” opines Tiwari.
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