Water Initiative Orissa (WIO), a leading environment body working for conservation of natural waterbodies, on Tuesday gave a call to vote for candidates who care for rivers and waterbodies in the coming urban local body elections.
The call came after a team of WIO officials undertook a study in nine cities from across the state on the problems such as water, sanitation and related aspects. The team also tried to get an understanding of people’s expectations from the candidates. “Most of the city-dwellers felt they are living in unhygienic conditions. Most of our cities are severely polluted due to blind and unplanned waste disposal, felt the citizens. Especially the slum-dwellers, who are living in most unhygienic conditions and with very poor basic amenities, have felt that they don’t have any right to water and sanitation in this state,” WIO convenor Ranjan Panda, while sharing the study findings, said.
In most of the slums in urban areas, majority of the inhabitants are going for open defecation. They are forced to drink untreated water, he added.
The study revealed that that at least 90 per cent of slum dwellers of the urban areas of Odisha defecated in the open; and only about 25 per cent of them availed pipe-water supply; much of which is untreated.
”Most of the municipalities in the state are dumping the solid waste, medical wastes and all other types of hazardous wastes anywhere they find a space, haphazardly without any proper planning. Almost all garbage is transported in open body transport carriers. None of the urban areas have a proper solid waste management plan. As a result, malaria and jaundice have become common in most of the slum areas of the state,” Mr Panda observed.
In cities like Puri, the supposed to be protected sweet water zones have turned out to be garbage pits, venues for open defecation and dumping of all sorts of waste materials.
“In almost all the cities, water bodies, riversides and open fields are being used as dumping yards of municipal bodies as well as private contractors used by them in sanitary operations. Majority of the people we talked believed privatisation of sanitation services has miserably failed,” he said.
All rivers flowing by the cities of the state are heavily polluted due to urban wastes, human wastes and industrial pollution, revealed the survey. Mahanadi is among the most polluted rivers in Odisha, in so far as urban wastes are concerned, the WIO study found.
“WIO appeals all the candidates contesting in the ongoing ULB elections to consider these above concerns and opinion of the urban people of the state as their agenda for action while seeking votes,” Mr Panda said.