PHED prescribes hand pumps for hill areas
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 12 2014 : On account of rampant deforestation activities, extensive burning of forest areas, jhum cultivation and depleting water sources, hand pumps have turned out to be most reliable source of water in hill areas of the State.

According to an official source in Public Health Engineering Department, most of the Gravity Water Supply Schemes taken up in hill areas are becoming defunct as water is no longer available at their designated sources.

Earlier, water was supplied to hill people from water reservoirs built at the villages and the reservoirs were fed with water brought down by pipes from sites where water was available abundantly.

But nowadays water sources which fed reservoirs have little or no water.

Moreover, many pipes have worn out and broken.

As such every little water reaches reservoirs.

Even if the worn out pipes are replaced and the reservoirs renovated, it would not serve any purpose as very little water is available at the sources.

Nonetheless, PHED has been working to identify sites in hill areas where water is available abundantly so as to take up Gravity Schemes.

PHED prescribes hand pumps for hill areas

To implement one such schemes takes at least four to five years in the process of making DPR, obtaining Govt sanction and in completing other official procedures.

An additional time of around two years would be required to execute the scheme.

In the meantime, the volume of water available at the source would go down.

The scheme thus taken up with the expected life span of 30 years would become defunct just after two/years.

As such, there is wide gap between the money invested in the scheme and the benefits expected out of it.

Although deforestation has become a major issue in the State, there is no let up in activities like lumbering, burning of extensive forest areas and uprooting of roots for obtaining charcoal.

Because of these deforestation activities, the problem of water scarcity is becoming more and more acute every passing year.

Under such situation, hand pumps are the quickest solution, particularly in hill areas.

Drilling a hand pump takes just around three days and it is cost effective.

Even when hill and valley areas reeled under acute water shortage last month extending to the first week of the current month, and when all the 17 major water supply plants became defunct, the problem was minimal at places where there are hand pumps.

Water required in Imphal and surrounding areas is 101.90 MLD.

This figure would rise to 197.50 MLD in 2036.On the other hand, the aggregate installed capacity of all water supply plants of Manipur is 101.37 MLD.

But the actual quantity of potable water supplied/treated by these plants varies between 50-75 MLD.

There is a wide gap between supply and demand of water and this is gap more and more wider with population growth on one hand and shrinking water sources on the other.

As such, the problem of water scarcity would multiply with each passing year.

Under such scenario, hand pumps may turn out to be the best option, added the official.