Over 3 lakh people benefit from hand pumps
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, June 28 2016: PHED's Investigation, Planning and Design Division has been providing water through hand pumps to around 3,40,000 people against the State's population of 27,21,756 .

PHED's Investigation, Planning and Design Division Executive Engineer Oinam Kullachandra told The Sangai Express that the department has been drilling hand pumps where water cannot be supplied through pipe lines or laying pipe lines is not economically viable.

As per guidelines of the Ministry of Drinking Water, there should be a hand pump for every 250 people.

However, around three hand pumps are installed for every village at the rate of one hand pump for every 150 people on account of the State's low ground water potential.

Again, the Ministry says that there should be hand pump for every one Kilometre.

But in Manipur there are many places where two hand pumps are separated by just 300/400 metres.

At many places in India, ground water is available at minimum depth.

Providing water to people through hand pumps is quite successful at these places.

Hand pumps were introduced in Manipur around 1982.Though it has been many decades back, only around 2900 hand pumps are operational at present as many other hand pumps drilled by the department ended in failure.

There were some other hand pumps which were functional at the initial years before they went dry after some years.

Although the department has set a target of drilling 100 hand pumps in a year, the same could not be achieved on account of short working season, lack of machinery and fund paucity on the part of the Government.

Generally drilling a hand pump costs around Rs 3,40,000.This amount is shared between the Central Government and the State Government at the ratio of 60:40 .

Maintenance of the presently functional hand pumps which number around 2900 costs around Rs 20 lakh in a year, Kullachandra said.

But the department often find it difficult to repair hand pumps as and when they become defective on account of fund paucity.

When there is a need to drill a new hand pump or repair an existing one, the department could not act immediately and it is compelled to wait for availability of fund.

There were cases when defective hand pumps were repaired out of money collected from local people in accordance with their desire as they could not wait long.

However, in general cases, the amount needed for drilling new hand pumps or repairing existing ones are borne fully by the Government, Kullachandra added.

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