SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF DRINKING WATER COVERAGE IN THE RURAL AREAS OF UTTARAKHAND HIMALAYA: A GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS

Uttarakhand government has made a good effort towards covering rural areas in meeting basic water requirements. There are various natural water sources such as spring, river, glacier, groundwater, well etc which play a significant role in the supply of water in the villages of Uttarakhand state. The fundamental objective of this research paper is to study the basic water facility in the villages of Uttarakhand state. For this purpose, the piped water supply (PWS) and functional household tap connection (FHTC) are analyzed. There are total 16919 villages in the study area. Out of the total villages, 16568 villages have PWS facility and about 47% households are connected with PWS facility. There are about 38% villages have more than 70% FHTC coverage. The study reveals that unbalanced development of FHTC and PWS facility among the different districts, i.e., some districts such as U.S. Nagar, Champawat, Almora, Haridwar etc have poor development of FHTC and PWS facility whereas some districts such as Dehradun, Chamoli, Bageshwar etc have good facility. The study suggests that all the villages and households should be covered equally under PWS and FHTC facilities to ensure basic water security.