Scarcity of drinking water in Imphal

Correspondent IMPHAL, April 22 [dropcap]S[/dropcap]oaring heat and scanty rainfall has created a scarcity of drinking water in Manipur particularly in greater Imphal area this season hitting farming activities. Water level of almost of the water supply intake points along Manipur’s Imphal and Iril rivers, the two main water source of the State capital besides the Singda dam(water reservoir) have also gone down drastically due to lack of rainfall since November last year, forcing State’s Public Health Engineering (PHE) department to close down the major supply lines. In the meantime a high level committee has been formed to look into the situation on the war footing, according to PHE Minister I Hemochandra.The Greater Imphal area which has more than 4 lakh population requires around 80 million litres of water daily. However, the PHE could barely meet 50 per cent of the demand. PHE report said a total of 1,722 habitations (out of 2,870) in the State have been fully covered under its water supply schemes. Imphalites are getting only about 40 million litres of drinking water from 13 major water supply treatment plants in and around the city. Interestingly, most of ponds and other wetlands have also been vanished with the sudden rise in population and constructions. On the other hand state’s rainfall rate in the last four months is comparatively low. An official of Meteorological (MET) office Imphal speaking to this reporter said a sub-division of IMD (Indian Meteorological Department) in NE region which consists of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura, has been experiencing scanty rainfall this season. He also informed that no rainfall was recorded in January against the expected 11.7mm.Similarly February and March have a record of 19mm and 34.7mm against the expected 30.8mm and 91.6mm.Till date April records only about 21.1mm(against the expected 132.7mm in the whole month),he added. Vanishing of forest area in the catchments areas of State’s rivers, irregular power supply and continuous leakage of water in the pipelines were other main reasons for water scarcity in Manipur, environmentalists here felt. The situation has been worsening after the state had been experiencing the warmest days on April 20 and 21(35.6 degree Celsius) after July 13, 2009 record of 35.7 degree Celsius. Even though temperature in Imphal West and Imphal East districts have come down to 33.23 degree Celsius and 34.29 degree Celsius on the World Earth Day on Tuesday, the Tamenglong or the western hill district of the state bordering Assam’s Cachar and NC Hills continues to reel with a maximum temperature of 35.63.