Rourkela, April 25: The water crisis which had gripped the Rourkela Steel City for the last fortnight or so has been resolved to a great extent, thanks to the round the clock concerted and dedicated efforts of the Town Engineering Water Supply, Water Management and other departments and the constant supervision and guidance of CEO Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) Ashwini Kumar.
According to RSP sources, Kumar had been personally reviewing the situation on a daily basis and was holding meetings and discussions with the dedicated team constituted for this purpose and closely monitoring the various initiatives.
The temperature in Odisha as well as in other places has recorded an all time high and there is a severe water crisis everywhere. As a result water supply is being restricted to once in two days and even once every three days in many places as per the reports. In this context ensuring sufficient quantity of water once a day in Rourkela Steel Township is a positive development which has been made possible due to the proactive strategy and effective implementation by RSP management.
There was acute depletion of water in the River Koel which is the only source of water for most of the sectors in the steel city. As a result the steel city was in the grip of a severe water crisis. To tackle the situation water supply was regulated and made once every two days. The residents were requested to store water for consumption for 2-3 days to take care of any exigency. In some very hard hit localities, supply through tankers was started.
Besides, the Management of Rourkela Steel Plant initiated several other measures on a war footing. Action was taken to increase the number of tube wells and also to dig deep bore wells at suitable centralised locations. Excavation was started in the Koel River bed to accumulate more quantity of water near the intake well at Sector-20. A Control Room manned 24 hours by Key Resource Persons was set up in Water Supply Town.
The facilities at Tarkera pump house could only cater to the Steel Plant and a few sectors through the Brahmani water works situated in Sector-8. It did not have the capacity for meeting the extra demand for both drawal and evacuation. Through a well planned and focussed approach several modifications were incorporated to tackle this problem and cater to the need of more sectors. All the pumps installed at Tarkera were put into operation with increased evacuation facility. 22 water tankers have been put in to operation for distribution of potable water as per the receipt of complaints at Control Room- a practice which is continuing.
All these interventions by Rourkela Steel Plant have resulted in improving the situation considerably and at present water supply to all sectors is being ensured.
