World Water Week, population lives in apartment or slum, they must be prepared to face the disaster;Dr. Mishra Additional Commissioner, SRC
Bureau,Odishabarta
Bhubaneswar, 27 August: The Consultation- Building a WASH Resilience City: Contours and Challenges- organized on 27 August, 2021 as culmination of the World Water Week 2021, saw the coming together of diverse stakeholders to share insights and reflect on the issue. Organized by Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) with the support of Water for Women Fund, Australian Government, the event began with the release of a CFAR study titled: Mobilizing facilitating, and replicating socially inclusive initiatives to enhance disaster resilience in India’s urban slum: Taking Bhubaneswar as Case-by Dr. Kamal Lochan Mishra Additional Commissioner SRC Odisha.
In his Keynote address, Dr. Mishra emphasized that given Odisha State’s leadership in the field of disaster management, “we must enlist the recommendations and suggestions from all stakeholders including the community and develop an urban disaster resilience plan.” He went on to add that whether the population lives in the apartment or slum, they must be prepared to face the disaster.
He suggested that disaster proof infrastructure must developed by Odisha State Disaster Management Agency (OSDMA) with the active involvement of the community and NGOs who can work as bridge between government and community.
Highlighting the challenges the community faces, Pravati Panda, Single Window Forum (SWF) member, Barabhuja pointed out that “there is a broken pipeline near the settlement where water is getting wasted and contaminated and as a community we know how precious water is and would like to play a strong role in safeguarding it.”
Taking this forward, Sabitri Parida, SWF, member said after visiting the Palasuni water treatment plant she realized the effort that is being made to treat and purify water and would like to be part of any campaign to raise public awareness about safe water.
Reinforcing this, Jharana Maharana, a SWF member said that “since we are continuously raising awareness on the importance of safe water, we would be happy to be part of any effort to strengthen awareness about water quality.’
However, Laxmipriya Lenka, SWF, member from Nirakari Nagar pointed out apart from raising awareness on safe water, their rights as users must also be recognized. Speaking about this she said that “we face many problems from inflated bills to excessive use of bleaching powder which is spoiling the taste of food and we wonder who we can to turn to address our grievances.”
Mr. Sachikanta Pradhan, from The Humanity spoke about the need to limit the dependence on ground water and advocate with government for proper legislation to prevent misuse and wastage of water
Shri Lingaraj Prasad Pattanaik, BMC, City Planner said that to recycle waste water around 1600 points are being constructed for ground water recharge.
Ms. Saswastik Behera and Mr. Subrat Samantaray from Spectrum, the water testing facility, WATCO assured the community that the lab will collect samples of water from different sources and test them. “We can even organize a mobile lab, reach out to community who have doubts about quality of water and ensure that all testing takes place at the request of the community.”
In response, Ranhi Kinnar, SWF member representing Transgender said that they would be happy to be part of the programme
