Piped water in Bengaluru, 12 capitals undrinkable: BIS

Think twice before you drink water straight from the tap! Quality of piped drinking water supplied in 13 state capitals, including Bengaluru, is “undrinkable”, a study conducted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has revealed.

All the 10 samples of water collected from Bengaluru failed on five parameters – turbidity, presence of aluminium, calcium, bromo-trichloromethane and coliform.

The only metropolitan city where people can drink tap water safely is Mumbai as all the 10 samples collected from the financial capital complied with Indian Standards, Consumer Affairs Minister Ramvilas Paswan told reporters here after releasing the findings BIS study.

However, other metro cities of Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai failed in 10 out of 11 quality parameters tested by the BIS which functions under the aegis of the Consumer Affairs Ministry.

In the first phase, the BIS had found all the 11 samples drawn from Delhi did not comply with the quality norm and the piped water was not safe for drinking purpose, he added. The second phase of the study covered 20 state capitals.

“None of the samples drawn from 13 of the state capitals – Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhi Nagar, Lucknow, Jammu, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chennai and Kolkata – complied with the requirements of the Indian Standard,” said Paswan.

In the cities of Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Raipur, Amravati and Shimla, one or more samples did not comply with the requirements of the BIS, he said.

The minister said he has written to state governments asking them to clarify what help his government can provide to make tap water drinkable.

According to Paswan the solution to this problem is to make compliance of quality standards for piped water mandatory across the country. The ministry has written to state governments in this regard, he told reporters.

“Stringent action cannot be taken as the quality standards for piped water at present are not mandatory. Once it becomes, we can take action,” Paswan added.

Testing was conducted to check organoleptic and physical parameters and know the chemical and toxic substances and bacteriological quality besides virological and biological parameters, BIS Director-General Pramod Kumar Tiwari said.

In the third phase, samples from the capital cities of northeastern states and from 100 smart cities will be tested and their results are expected by January 15, 2020.

In the fourth phase, it is proposed to test samples from all the district headquarters of the country and the results are expected by August 15, 2020.