Proposal mooted to treat contaminated Delhi water

New technology to control cancer causing TTHM in Delhi, proposed by Water Resources Ministry, reports Chetan Chauhan

Published on: Nov 14, 2006, 12:03:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Cities like Delhi may get cleaner drinking water if the latest efforts of the Water Resources Ministry get Planning Commission’s nod. HT on Saturday has pointed at the high levels of Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM) in Delhi water due to old processes in water purification units and chances of contamination due to old pipelines.

That could be a thing of the past as the ministry has proposed to give financial incentives to states to update age-old water purification technology with the best global practices ,in a bid to provide safe drinking water.

Many agencies like the National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have conducted studies highlighting contamination of the drinking water. The proposal, promoting central and State cooperation, is being discussed at sub-group level and is likely to be part of the approach paper, a commission official said.

The minister also stressed on better water management at Water Digest Awards 2006 on Monday. “There are major contributors to water management and our efforts should be to bring them to the fore and set examples for others to follow,” he said, while pointing a need for better water quality delivery in India.

The CPCB Monday gave a clean chit to the Delhi Jal Board on its water treatment plans. “Samples from seven DJB treatment plants detailed below were collected from 15 locations and TTHM was found to be within the permissible limits of US Environment Protect Agency (UPEPA) standards. But, the samples lifted by CPCB staff from their own homes in different parts of the city had high TTHM.

CPCB also said that chlorination is used as disinfectant because of its effectiveness, cheapness and easy availability. However, during treatment, the chlorine reacts with naturally occurring bio-genic organic matter, such as humic and fulvic acids resulting in formation of various disinfection by-products and TTHMs, considered toxic and carcogenic.

Studies in US have shown that cancer is the most possible TTHM risk but its intensity is highly debated. A study in California found high miscarriage rate among women drinking five glasses of highly contaminated TTHM water but another study in North Carolina found toxicity of such water very less. According to Dr Anil Bansal of Delhi Medical Council, when the concentration of TTHM is more than .46 milligram per litre it can cause colon-rectum and bladder cancer and can also cause miscarriage.

The easy solution, according to experts, is use of chloramines in place of chlorine. Several cities in US and Europe are using chloramines even though it is less effective than chlorine. For India, chlorine is the best option because of high contamination of the raw water.

Reacting to the HT report, a resident L K Sabbarwal said, the issue should be taken up by the government and necessary steps should be taken. A CPCB official, however, said the Sonia Vihar Water Treatment plant employs one of the world’s best water purification systems.

Chetan Chauhan Email : chetan@hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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