Alert call! The residents of Guwahati need to buy reverse osmosis (RO) water purifiers as a study by the Union Consumer Affairs Ministry has found samples of tap water collected from the city do not comply with the Indian standards (IS) for drinking water, according to a report.
Releasing the second phase study on November 16th, 2019, Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan that metro cities of Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai failed in almost 10 out of 11 quality parameters tested by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) which is under the aegis of his Ministry.
In Delhi, all the 11 samples drawn from various places did not comply with the requirements of the IS and failed on several parameters. All the 10 samples drawn from Mumbai were found to comply with the requirements, the Minister informed.
In the cities of Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Raipur, Amravati and Shimla, one or more samples did not comply with the requirements of the Standard and none of the samples drawn from 13 of the State Capitals i.e. Chandigarh,Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhinagar, Lucknow, Jammu, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chennai, Kolkata complied with the requirements of the IS,” Paswan stated.
“All should get clean drinking water and that is the objective of this activity. The objective is not to demotivate anyone rather it to encourage State Governments to ensure quality potable tap water to all citizens,” he said.
Paswan further added that in the third phase, samples from capital cities of Northeastern States and Smart Cities identified by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have been drawn and are being tested.
The result of these is expected by January 15th, 2020. While in the fourth phase, it is proposed to test samples drawn from all the district headquarters of the country and their testing is planned to be completed by August 15th, 2020.
Paswan also said that the Union Government wants to make BIS Standards mandatory for Tap Water so as to ensure quality drinking water for all households.
Photo credit: wasimag.com
