WASTE WATER FROM TUBE-WELLS STORED, TREATED IN B’NGIR
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It is a common sight in rural areas of western Odisha of water flowing on road, creating water logging and providing an ideal ground for breeding of mosquitoes that leads to diseases like malaria and dengue.
Babijore, a small village tucked in the scenic surrounding of Deogaon block, located 27 km from Bolangir, had also the similar problem. Water discharged from tube wells in the village flowed on the road and created unhealthy surrounding, which made the lives of the rural poor a hell as many of them suffered from malaria.
“Two years ago, water discharged from the tube well would flow on the side of my house and the menace of mosquito was high and we suffered a lot. We even used to close our doors after 5pm and remain indoors to avoid mosquito bite,” says Sula Bag, a village woman.
“After the implementation of discharged residual water programme from tube wells by Ramji Krushak Samiti, Babijore, with support from Reliance Foundation, the water is not flowing on the road and it is carried by pipe below the surface. As a result, our area remains dry and the incidence of malaria could be averted,” adds Bag.
Besides the mosquito problem, water was also going waste. However, things have changed after the discharged residual water was collected in a two-chamber tank and utilized to provide life saving irrigation to nutrition garden promoted by the Reliance Foundation. The nutrition garden is a scheme to provide nutritional and economic benefit to the rural poor by providing fresh grown different vegetables in the back yard.
The water from the tube well in rural areas is used for drinking, bathing, and washing of clothes and utensils. The water is collected in a medium tank with two chambers. On one side of the tank, a total of five layers of locally available materials like big boulders, small chips, coal, coarse sand and fine sand are kept. As the water falls on there from the channel drawn from the tube well, it gets filtered. The soap and oily substance is soaked by the layers of coal in the tank and then water is totally filtered and is released to the field, explains senior programme manager Reliance Foundation Balangir Santosh Khandai, adding that the water treatment tank is operated by villagers themselves.
“Earlier, we used to dig knee/waist deep holes near the tube wells and collect the discharged water. However, low amount of water would dry up soon,” says Sursuta Bag, another villager. A total of 50 people of our locality would use the tube well for the different purposes and the quantity of water discharged from a tube well is more than 500 litres, informs Bag.
But with the new water storage and treatment method, we are irrigating our nutrition garden and around 10-14 varieties of vegetables are produced, adds Bag.
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