Drinking Water Supply for Tribals of Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

The health of the population is mainly depended on the purity of water available for drinking. The Government have been striving to develop extensive drinking water sources for providing protected water to people living in urban, rural and tribal areas by implementing several urban and rural water supply schemes. The National Rural Water Supply Scheme has been extended to tribal areas also and an amount of Rs. 18.70 lakhs were spent by the end of III Five Year Plan. Intensive endeavors were made by various agencies to provide drinking water facilities, yet the problem of drinking water is acute in the tribal villages due to two reasons, Viz. geophysical conditions and scattered settlement pattern of the villages. The present paper seeks to assess the progress made so far in providing drinking water facility to the tribals and illustrates their usefulness by conducting a case study of the programme in the Addateegala Tribal Development Block of East Godavari District. However, the role of socio-cultural factors in the success or failure of the programme is illustrated with the help of case studies conducted in different parts of the tribal areas of the State, thereby identifying barriers and carriers or assisting in the process of implementing the programme. The study reveals that during the I, II and III Five Year Plans (3.08, 8.70 & 6.92 lakhs), funds were provided for drinking water supply to Scheduled Tribes along with the other development programmes. The source of drinking water in Addeteegala block may be categorized into two i.e traditional and modern. It is noticed that traditional sources i.e hill streams and indigenous wells are serving a majority of the villages (198) in the block whereas the modern sources are serving only 87 villages. Traditional sources provide only unprotected water whereas modern sources provide protected water and consequently have less coverage. Therefore, it is necessary to bring a greater number of villages under modern sources of drinking water supply. Expenditure for drinking water supply is met from L.D, C.D, S.W., and equalization grants and year wise expenditure on drinking water well since inception of Samithi is also mentioned in this paper. Socio distance stigma is a one of the barriers to utilization of modern drinking water facilities and another aspect is the motor habits of the tribal people are not conducive for the introduction of rope and bucket. Superstitious beliefs sometimes prevent tribals from using the benefits of a well. It is necessary to make it a felt need by educating the people by audio-visual aids about advantages of the protected water from the wells in contrast to the streams, and dirty ponds.