New Delhi:
Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the quality of water supplied in the city, the Delhi Jal Board on Wednesday said 98% of the over 4,200 samples collected from across the city were found to be “fit” for drinking.
“We had collected 4,204 samples from across the city. A comprehensive quality test of the samples proves 98.19% of them were fit for drinking,” said DJB vice-chairman Dinesh Mohaniya while releasing the test report at a press conference.
Of the 4,204 samples, 4,128 proved ‘satisfactory’ while 76 samples were found ‘unsatisfactory’, the report stated. “The sealed samples were tested in DJB laboratories on 29 parameters. The rate of satisfactory samples (98.19%) is well within the World Health Organisation (WHO) requirement of 96%. Only 1.81% of the samples did not clear the test,” said Mohaniya. As per WHO norms, one sample is collected per 10,000 people.
The controversy over water quality in Delhi broke after a Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) report, released by union consumer affairs, food and public distribution minister Ram Vilas Paswan on November 16, stated that 11 samples of tap water lifted from Delhi had failed on 24 parameters and that the water was most unsafe among samples lifted from 21 cities across the country.
Mohaniya alleged the BIS report was “ill-motivated” and aimed at defaming the Delhi government as assembly elections are due early next year.
{{/usCountry}}Mohaniya alleged the BIS report was “ill-motivated” and aimed at defaming the Delhi government as assembly elections are due early next year.
{{/usCountry}}“BIS collected these samples in an unscientific way without transparency,” he said. BIS could not be reached for comment.
Mohaniya alleged BIS’s move was aimed to benefit RO manufacturers. “The report was an effort to malign the Delhi government just before the assembly elections. It conducted the tests in the labs of RO manufacturers. How can we expect a fair deal?” he added.
The water utility collected five samples each from the 272 municipal wards in the city over a 10-day-long drive between November 20 and November 30. The samples were collected randomly from five households in every ward.
“The percentage of samples treated at the water treatment plants fared well --- Wazirabad (95.71%), Haiderpur (100%), Tahirpur (94.33%), Nangloi (99.47%), Dwarka (98.40%), Bawana (100%), Greater Kailash (100%) and Okhla (100%),” the DJB report stated.