The Hindu : Corporation, Govt. agencies lack testing facilities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Corporation, Govt. agencies lack testing facilities

By Karthik Subramanian

CHENNAI FEB. 18. The controversy over the high incidence of residual pesticide in bottled drinking water does not seem to have any ripple effect in the city, where the testing facilities available at Chennai Corporation and other agencies are a far cry from what is needed.

The public analyst lab of the Chennai Corporation at Ripon Buildings is a study in contrast to what it promotes. The building is in a dilapidated condition and is in urgent need of repairs. The Water Testing Wing of the lab has been rendered unusable for more than three years now due to neglect and lack of infrastructure development.

Reportedly, the last time the civic agency upgraded its facilities was in 1993 and a plan to renovate the building at a cost of Rs 50 lakh has been hanging fire for several years now. The public analyst lab plays the important role of checking food and water samples that the sanitary inspectors and food inspectors lift from various parts of the city.

Let alone the infrastructure, the civic agency's performance in monitoring the public health has been affected by more than 40 vacancies for the post of sanitary inspectors. Also, there are currently just 10 food inspectors who are working part-time with the civic agency. On an average, they pick 10 samples each, accounting for a total of just 100 food samples inspected in the entire city during a month.

While the food inspectors contend that adulteration is not a major issue in the city and is restricted mainly to local milk products, ice creams and a few items like chilly powder, the real focus now is on testing water samples. The civic agency had inaugurated its fully functional Water Analysis Wing in 1993-94 at the cost of Rs. seven lakhs and the unit even functioned well in the subsequent years. But they have not been able to sustain it during the last three years.

Now, the public analyst lab does only the basic tests such as presence of residual chlorine, total dissolved solids and some chemical and bacteriological tests. They do not have the testing facilities to run the entire list of 51 tests as it stands today under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.

The vacancies of sanitary inspector posts and the presence of just part time inspectors have resulted in relatively poor performance when it comes to identifying and prosecuting food adulterators. From April 2002 to January 2003, 708 food samples were lifted and checked of which 49 were found to be adulterated. From January to December 2002, the lab tested just 185 water samples even though the Corporation has made the test mandatory for all lodging houses in the city.

It is also debatable whether all the sanitary workers strictly enforce the provision of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, which is mandatory under their job chart.

When contacted the Chennai Corporation Commissioner, M. Kalaivanan said the main reason for the lack of manpower in the health department was due to difficulty in getting qualified persons. "The facilities at the public analyst lab would be upgraded at the earliest to present a fully functional lab," he added.

Meanwhile, the lab facilities at the other government agencies seem to be no different. The King Institute lab, which is the premier testing facility in the city, also does not have advanced equipment to test residual pesticide or other advanced tests. However, the lab technicians there said the facilities available were `enough' to certify whether the water was potable or not.

Ditto, the facilities at the quality assurance wing of the Metrowater where more than 600 water samples are tested by the government agency from its supply line. The facility at Kilpauk tests the water for 23 parameters in all, including one bacteriological test, three physical tests and 19 chemical tests. The question of residual pesticide in Metrowater supply does not arise because of its source being lake storage.

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