CS instructs officials to keep tab on drinking water scarcity zones.
After the recent order of the Jharkhand High Court, Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma directed all the Superintending, Executive, Junior Engineers and Assistant Engineers to visit drinking water scarcity zones regularly and make sure its availability to the people.
She also directed repairing hand pumps in rural areas.
Verma said that engineers will take information from the ‘Jal Sahiyas’ about functional and dysfunctional hand pumps in their areas.
At the same time she directed all engineers to visit at least three villages daily and ensure work as per directives.
Also, they will prepare a report of at least 30 villages and will mail it to the Department.
At the interval of two days, press should be briefed at dist and block level about the development in the areas.
Verma also has asked the officials to inspect those villages by May 25 where the water scarcity is too high.
She said that if any villager faces water scarcity, action will be taken on the related officers of concerned areas.
The CS said that areas where water supply is not possible, water should be provided from tanker.

CS calls for regular water supply in rural areas after high court rebuke.
Ranchi, May 12: In the light of High Court order, Chief Secretary Raj Bala Verma directed all the superintending, executive, JE and asst.
engineers to visit drinking water scarcity zone regularly and provide drinking water to the people.
She said that all the hand pumps should be repaired so that water could be provided to people in rural areas.
Mrs. Verma said that engineers will take information from the Jal Sahiyas on functional and dysfunctional hand pumps in their areas.
mail.
She said that every day development report should be sent by PMU Director and briefed the press.
She has directed to inspect those villages by 25th May which are hard hit from drinking water availability point of view.
It was said that the dysfunctional unit will be started in 2 days.
IAS and departmental officers are sent to districts for inspection.

Drinking Water dept on a mission mode, to repair 4500 hand-pumps.
Jamshedpur: Drinking water and sanitation department officials of the city on Friday claimed that there is no crisis of driving water whether it be in rural areas or urban areas.
The superintending engineer of the department Rajendra Prasad, addressing scribes at a press conference, said the department was supplying sufficient water to people both in rural and urban areas.
“In rural areas, the per capita consumption of water is 40 litre while in urban areas the daily requirement per capital is 100 litre.
Our department is supplying enough water to the citizens on a daily basis,” said Prasad.
Prasad said the department had started repair of hand-pumps in the affected areas besides carrying out deep boring in certain areas.
Nodal officers have been deputed in all blocks in order to provide relief to the people.
The government has provided funds for this purpose.
In rural areas, there are a total of 22500 hand-pumps, out of which 18,000 are in functional state.
The remaining hand-pumps would be repaired.

That’s why the Alliance for Water Efficiency, Environmental Law Institute, and River Network recently released a tool to help communities plan for water-neutral growth.
The Net Blue Ordinance Toolkit, developed with input from seven geographically diverse regions of the U.S., is designed to meet different water needs when drafting an ordinance to require developers to offset new water demand.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, among the most well-known of the 13 U.S. communities with existing water-neutrality ordinances, the city requires that developers pay for the new water rights their project will require.
With the focus on retrofits and conservation, city and water utilities will identify the biggest drains on the system and the interventions with the highest potential, she says.
The latter, says Dickinson, “is something we haven’t yet seen before, but we think as a national effort this is something we could test out.” In creating the toolkit, AWE and partners researched the 13 communities that already have ordinances, as well as four communities that once had an ordinance but discontinued it.
In some of these communities, says Dickinson, without an offset ordinance, a building moratorium might have been necessary.
San Luis Obispo, California, adopted an ordinance in 1990 during a severe drought, but discontinued it in 2005 when the city obtained a new water source — and started running out of low-efficiency toilets to replace.
As an example, she says, “I would never want to suggest that Milwaukee do a water neutral development ordinance.
For cities not in a crisis, but still concerned about their water supply, Dickinson points to the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland, a utility she sees working hand in hand with a planning department.
Most water utilities, she says, plan for water supply based on projected population growth.

Drinking water scarcity is the major problem that the residents of Agonda village panchayat have.
Housewives, who have to face the brunt of water, spoke their hearts out and said that it is the duty of the elected government to give enough water to the residents, but the government is lacking in technology on how to tap the available water and hence people have to suffer.
They said that the river has enough water flowing upto October-November every year but the bandhara constructed here some years back, has developed several leakages and as such the people have to go without water.
The next problem which the residents living at Davalkhazan face is the dilapidated condition of the BoriePul bridge which has developed several cracks and may give way, hence an alternate bridge is the need of the hour.
If this bridge gives way, the residents will be highly inconvenienced and will face a lot of hardships.
She said that the bridge issue was discussed in length and continuously debated for the last many gram sabhas over the years, wherein the panchayat authority after sending the resolution approached the concerned authority for a quick re-survey and necessary follow up.
A resident from Davalkhazan who does not wish to be named said that a few months ago shacks/tents/cottage have been taken up by the people along the coastal belt.
If this bridge gives way, it will inconvenience and cause hardship to tourists who use the bridge to land at Davalkhazan.
The wires mounted on electric poles have not been replaced.
Many electric lines run though small and big trees and during heavy wind they brush against branches resulting in a total black out.

Jigawa to distribute 5, 000 hand pumps, tube wells to farmers.
The Jigawa Government on Wednesday, said it would make available 5, 000 water pumps and tube wells in farmlands to check perennial water scarcity experienced by farmers in the state.
The state deputy governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan, made this disclosure at the inauguration of a weed clearance exercise in Kirikasamma, Jigawa.
Hassan said the State Government had worked out modalities to construct tube wells in the 5, 000 hectares of farmlands to encourage irrigation agriculture.
He stated that one water pump and a tube well would be provided in each hectare of the farmlands.
Hassan said that the tube wells and water pumps would be provided to the farmers to address the problem and encourage production.
“This is to provide lands for cultivation and enhance effective utilisation of water and agricultural resources”.
The deputy governor lauded the community leaders for mobilising participation in agriculture, adding that the trend would encourage food production and enhance wealth creation in the society.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Hadejia valley project was initiated by the Federal Government in the 1980s to encourage irrigation activities, enhance fishery and water supply to communities.
The greater part of the river was ravaged by typher grass, which affected irrigation activities.

Drought in the Western Ghats Part 4: In Kerala’s Wayanad, acute water scarcity leading to man-animal conflict.
The elephants seem to be making a desperate dash for food and water, as the forests wilt and water holes inside dry up.
The Wayanad division alone has distributed Rs 83 lakhs as compensation to the villagers this financial year for crop losses and other destruction.
Muthanga, a vital part of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary with a lot of human population, has been bearing the brunt for the last three months.
Although they are occasionally prone to crop raids by wild elephants, he says the last two months have been worst he had ever seen.
He says the situation is getting worse every year.
The elephant was on a crop raiding spree across these villages, destroying Valsan’s cultivation and a couple of houses in the area among others.
Forest officials say that the failure of bamboo crop along forests in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu owing to successive drought, and the easy availability of jackfruit and pineapple on the forest fringes, may have pushed the elephants to fruit crops; and the pachyderms are unlikely to stop eating these fruits once they taste them.
Forest officials are calling it a paradigm shift in forest management where the priority will shift from plantations to look for forest resources of water, which means that rather than artificially planting forests, the department would now regenerate the natural forest by trying to improve and preserve the water resources available.
But for this year, villagers live in fear while wildlife lives in hunger and thirst.

No brides for men in parched Madhya Pradesh village.
The village has a population of one thousand souls but without water supply or any water pipelines.
GK Web Desk Men in a village in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh struggle to find prospective life partners due to the water scarcity in their areas.
The families are reluctant to marry off their daughters in Chattarpur district, reported Business Standard.
Nobody is ready to marry off their daughters here," a Buxwaha resident was quoted as saying in the report.
The village has a population of one thousand souls but without water supply or any water pipelines.
"People, therefore, have to travel far to get water.
The place earlier had two hand pumps that have run dry," the report said.
The wedding of a son of Jassu Ahriwar was called off due to water scarcity, according to the report.
"The girl’s family had a strong liking for the boy and the family, given the state of water supply, things did not work out between the two sides and wedding was cancelled," Ahriwar said.

A wedding was lately cancelled as there was an acute water problem in the area, a Buxwaha resident said.
Chattarpur (Madhya Pradesh): Water scarcity in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district has created an unforeseen problem for young lads as families are not willing to marry off their daughters.
"A wedding was lately cancelled as there was an acute water problem in the area.
Nobody is ready to marry off their daughters here," a Buxwaha resident said.
Buxwaha village of Chhatarpur district is facing a severe water crises.
People, therefore, have to travel far to get water.
The place earlier had two hand pumps that have run dry.
Jassu Ahriwar’ son’s wedding was called off due to water scarcity. "
"Besides, this region is mountainous and has already been declared parched.
We will take care of it and ensure that the issue is resolved and people live a happy life thereafter," Prajapati added.

In an interview with ABC10, Sudman talked about her book and the future of California’s water policy.
Rita Sudman: I have to say that my coauthor, Stephanie Taylor, came up with the idea and pushed me to work with her on a book that would contain the history of the major watersheds, the stories of past and present real people involved with water issues, policy discussions by myself and brief essays by key diverse interest leaders and last – but certainly not least – her great art work depicting the water landscape.
Central Valley growers were not able to get the water from the state and federal projects due to the drought and the endangered fish issues, so they turned to groundwater and they pumped in a big way.
It’s been a year since your book came out.
He said, “It’s about the water.” California and the six other states sharing the Colorado River are arid states and the scarcity in those states sets up the conflict.
Actually, agriculture uses about 80 percent of the water we have put behind dams, although growers have made great strides in water efficiency in the last 25 years.
In drought years, groundwater supplies over two-thirds of the state’s water.
Policy makers in the legislature are often proposing state water bonds to finance projects and programs in years when the public is aware of problems.
In recent years, we have seen a major flood bond pass right after the Katrina disaster and this helped California improve levees.
We have always had cycles of drought and wet years in California but now we will see more.