Damaged ecosystems affect the quantity and quality of water available for human consumption. Today, 2.1 billion people live without safe drinking water at home affecting their health, education and livelihoods. The World Water Day on March 22 is about focusing attention on the importance of water. The theme for World Water Day 2018 is ‘Nature for Water: Eexploring Nature-Based Solutions to the Water Challenges We Face in the 21st century’.

Water quality in majority of rivers flowing in Odisha has been found to be polluted due to waste water released from drainage systems in the urban areas. The pollution level is alarmingly above the danger mark in most of the places.

Municipal sewage is considered to be the main pollutant of water. Most of the sewage receives no treatment before discharge in all the cities of Odisha. The cities like Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Sambalpur and Brahmapur which generate approximately 10, 7.5, 6.0, 3.075 and 5.0 lakh litres of sewage effluents respectively every day. These effluents are discharged into the river Mahanadi and Kathajodi in Cuttack, Kuakhai and Daya in Bhubaneswar, Brahmani in Rourkela, Mahanadi again at Sambalpur and and Rushikulya at Brahmapur.

The effluents contain heavy metals like lead, chromium, cadmium, zinc and mercury. Besides, the sewage effluents are rich with harmful bacteria and viruses which contaminate the river water. While drinking this contaminated water, people suffer from serious diseases.

In Odisha, there are paper industries at Rayagada, Choudwar and Jaypore which discharge effluents to the rivers. Discharge of effluents from smelter plants of Nalco to the water bodies at Angul cause fluoride pollution in drinking water. Agricultural water pollution is caused by fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, farm animal wastes and sediments. Application and heavy doses of fertilisers pollute ground water in many parts of the State.

Death of aquatic animals has been reported in intensive rice growing areas of Odisha due to application of pesticides. Careless deposit of animal waste close to the wells and ponds cause pollution of water through leaching.

The pathogenic organisms of these wastes transmit to the water and pose serious problems. Besides, during the festival season, more than 5,000 idols are immersed in different rivers of Odisha which cause lead pollution in river water.

With rapid expansion of cities and domestic water supply, quantity of wastewater is increasing in the same proportion. Over 80 per cent of all the wastewater from our homes, cities, industry and agriculture flows back to nature and pollutes the environment. Odisha lags far behind in terms of access to toilet facilities. Major reason for perpetuation of diseases like diarrhoea and jaundice can be attributed to the non-availability of safe drinking water with poor sanitation facilities and practices.

A majority of people in rural areas still depend on open water bodies i.e. river, stream, pond etc as source of drinking water. The natural drinking water sources are getting polluted due to a number of reasons, including environmental and ecological, which affect the quality of drinking water. Very often it has been reported that water borne diseases are a major cause of poor health of women and children in rural areas.

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