Water quality upto standard

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 15.

Countering allegations levelled by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi with regard to supply of poor quality of drinking water, Delhi Jal Board today claimed that its water quality was not only perfect but also met the high standards prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards and the World Health Organisation.

``Every day our teams have been collecting 300 water samples at random from residential premises across the Capital. Rarely are they found to be contaminated,'' said the DJB Director (Treatment and Quality Control), Mr. Som Dutt.

Last year, the DJB had tested 94,000 water samples of which only one per cent were found contaminated. ``This is considered to be a very high standard,'' he said. ``Not only this, all samples which are collected and tested by a combined team of DJB and MCD have been found to be perfectly in order this year,'' Mr. Dutt said.

Giving details of the rigorous test procedures followed by the DJB to check the drinking water quality, Mr. Dutt said that samples were collected both during peak and non-peak hours and tested at five laboratories. ``There are as many as 30 parameters to test the these samples,'' he said.

Not only this the water quality was also being monitored at treatment plants by NEERI, an independent organisation of repute, for the past one year and-a-half years. ``At our level, water quality is perfectly all right and meets all the specified standards,'' said Mr. R. C.Dikshit of the NEERI.

Further, the daily analysis of water quality is also being undertaken by the Central Public Health Engineering organisation, which has also similar findings as that of the Treatment and Quality Control Department of the DJB.

Meanwhile reacting to the figures being quoted by the MCD over the poor quality, senior DJB officials have expressed surprise and said so far the civic body has ``not informed'' them about these findings.

``What we have come to know is only from media reports. They have not informed us about the nature and source of contamination,'' said a top DJB official.

This is contrary to the understanding between the two civic bodies that the DJB would be informed about water contamination by the MCD if detected in any part of the Capital. ``Only then can we rectify the mistake. This is not being done this year. They are only rushing to the media.''

In a statement early this week, the MCD Standing Committee Chairman, Mr. Prithvi Raj Sawhney, had said that out of the 375 water samples tested by the civic body as many as 140 were found not fit for drinking.

``The MCD reports are shocking. We cannot believe these figures. Until and unless they inform us about the test reports, it is not going to be of much help,'' officials said, adding: ``We even doubt if they were really samples of DJB water''.

The Capital requires about 800 MGD (million gallons per day) of water, of which the DJB supplies about 650, leaving a deficit of nearly 150 MGD.

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