People residing in and around Churachandpur, the second largest town in the state have been facing acute shortage of tap water for the past many years. The ground survey reveals that the populace of the town depends on private tankers for supplying of water which everyone cannot afford.

“No human can live without water; non-availability of water to people of the district for their use is a serious violation of their right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the acting chairman said in the report sent to the DC and secretary of the Public Health Engineering Department, Government of Manipur.

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   Our Social researcher in Churachandpur district found that a resident of the town has to pay Rs 250 for 500 litres of water from private tanks which the commoners are not able to afford. That Rs 250 crore Khuga Multipurpose Project which is about 10 kilometres from Churachandpur district headquarters has failed to function properly at present. The multipurpose project was commissioned in 2010 to irrigate 15,000 hectares of land, provide 10 million gallons for drinking water and have installed capacity of 7.5 MW hydropower. 51 percent population of the town have been unable to get the facilities from the project despite the government promising to provide safe drinking water under the national rural drinking water programme,

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Water scarcity leaves CCpur denizens high and dry
 

    People staying in urban areas of Churachandpur district collectively spend upto Rs 1,87,80,000 per month due to shortage of water which forces them to buy water from tankers for their daily use including household purpose and drinking.

    Water is necessary for human survival and denying the same to the population of a town is a gross violation of human rights and is against the right to live.  The official data records of the entire State for the 'Go To Village' mission of 2018-19, 246 complaints were enrolled/recorded with regard to the National Rural Drinking Water program and out of these, 183 had been delivered while 31 are pending and 32 were rejected.

   With regard to PHED, 136 complaints were received out of which 90 were delivered, 31 are pending and 15 were rejected as per official records and in a similar manner, as per the report concerning the water supply scheme (State plan), two complaints were enlisted but none were delivered or rejected.

   The people of Churachandpur district depend on Khuga Dam, Lanva river and Koite river as their main sources of drinking water. Water is sent from the dam to 6 different water reservoirs installed in different parts of the district and due to the non availability of proper pipes, the water from the water reservoirs could not be despatched to the villagers. At present, the reservoirs are able to provide water to only those staying inside a half kilometre radius from the respective reservoirs, he added.

Due to such problems, Churachandpur district has been facing acute shortage of water for the past many years, Ground survey revealed that the populace of the town depend on private tankers supplying water and the people pay Rs 500 per water tanker twice a week. The common people are not able to afford the price and this situation is a violation of human rights and is against the right to live.

However, the census report showed that in the urban area of Churachandpur 8.7 percent had access to tap water, 78.6 percent well water, 3.2 percent hand pump water and 9.5 percent from other sources available in the district.

The failure to provide water to the public clearly shows the negligence of the authority concerned in utilizing the dam GRAVIMA endeavour to carry out an area or district wise survey or inspection to take up proper measures for supplying water.