Will Sribhumi’s Rs 82 Cr Water Project Bring Clean Water at Last?

Amid tall promises and ceremonial ribbon-cutting, a stark question remains unanswered: Will the people of Sribhumi finally receive clean, safe drinking water—or just more contaminated hope in a shiny tank?

On Sunday, Assam’s Minister of Public Health Engineering and Urban Development, Jayanta Malla Baruah, laid the foundation stone for a new drinking water project worth Rs 82 crore in Assam’s Sribhumi district. The project, touted as a major public health initiative, aims to deliver piped drinking water to thousands of residents under the tagline “Drink from Tank” with a 100% purity guarantee.

But a few hundred metres from the inauguration site lies a haunting reality that starkly contradicts the promise of purity.

An Open Drain of Sewage and Deceit

At the heart of Sribhumi town flows Notikhal, a canal choked with sewage and filth. Along its banks, over a hundred toilets belonging to local households discharge directly into the canal. Most of these makeshift latrines lack proper septic tanks, allowing human waste to flow untreated into Notikhal, which ultimately merges with the Longai river.

And here’s the disturbing irony: the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) plans to draw water from this very Longai river—after minimal filtration through “water from tank” systems—and distribute it to the public as drinking water.

Residents, over 75,000 in number, are currently surviving on this contaminated water. Many rely on makeshift pumps, open wells, and surface sources laced with sewage from the town’s unplanned sanitation network. Despite this, the state machinery continues to offer ceremonial assurances, with ministers declaring “100% purity” while standing atop land saturated with filth.

A Promise Built on Sludge

The Rs 82 crore drinking water project may look ambitious on paper. But without urgently addressing the town’s lack of underground drainage, septic infrastructure, and the unchecked flow of excreta into public water bodies, the promise of clean drinking water remains dangerously hollow.

It raises a critical question for the people of Sribhumi: Can a tank purify not just water, but decades of administrative neglect and systemic failure?

Until sewage is kept out of the water source, all the pipelines in the world won’t deliver safe water—just a pressurised stream of polluted promises.

Only time will tell if this high-budget project becomes a genuine lifeline or yet another exercise in public deception—delivered, as always, with a ribbon and a speech.

ALSO READ: Sipajhar Village Struggles for Clean Water Despite Jal Jeevan Mission