New Delhi
Union food and consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday rejected the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) claim of a nexus with the water purifying industry and said that a nationwide water-quality testing drive was being done through the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of safe drinking water to all households by 2024.
“There should not be any politics over this. Safe drinking water is an important determinant of national health outcomes, especially of the poor who cannot afford water purifying devices, such as reverse-osmosis purifiers or any other technology,” Paswan said.
Results of the first leg of water tests covering 20 state capitals, including Delhi, were revealed by the Paswan-headed ministry on November 16. It showed water samples from Delhi failed to meet safety standards set by the BIS.
This prompted a fierce backlash from the AAP-led Delhi government and its chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Over the last week, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government and the AAP accused each other of “spreading lies and misleading people”.
“The objective of the testing campaign is not to de-motivate anyone but rather to encourage state governments to ensure quality potable tap water is provided to all,” the minister said.
The campaign for safe-drinking water is in step with the Union government’s Jal Jeevan Mission that aims to provide every household with access to safe drinking water by 2024, he said.
{{/usCountry}}The campaign for safe-drinking water is in step with the Union government’s Jal Jeevan Mission that aims to provide every household with access to safe drinking water by 2024, he said.
{{/usCountry}}Rejecting Kejriwal’s charges, Paswan also tweeted: “Today Arvind Kejriwalji in his press conference has made a U-turn from his earlier stand and admitted that Delhi has a problem of bad water. We have also been saying that there shouldn’t be politics on this and the problem should be rectified as soon as possible.”
The BIS, which is under the consumer affairs ministry, is the country’s top statutory national testing and standards agency that sets consumer-safety and quality norms for more than 300 products — from packaged water to gold. The BIS is set to expand water testing to 100 smart cities in its next phase and, later, to all 640 districts.
The BIS report would continue to rank states and cities on the quality of drinking water, an official said. A district-level ranking is also being planned.
A BIS official said water samples from 20 state capitals were drawn and sent to accredited BIS-accredited laboratories, which is the standard protocol.
The BIS has sent an internal report to the ministry, which gave details of the officials who collected samples in Delhi after the AAP alleged a sample from Burari locality was never collected.
The report said two scientists – Rajat Gupta and Jayachandra Babu – visited the premises of one Deepak Kumar Roy of Siddhi Vinayak Apartments in Burari on September 30 and October 1 and collected 100 litres of water. “Phone records and entries in the apartment’s register show this,” the report said.
Drinking water must meet BIS 10500:2012, the specification set by BIS. In Delhi, all 11 samples had failed the test, while all 10 samples from Mumbai passed the tests.
On the question of water purifying companies being a part of a BIS panel, an official, requesting anonymity, said it was routine and part of the protocol to have industry representations from a sector in which standards were formulated.