Dealing with issues of pollution and water conservation; Mumbai tops tap water drinking chart, Delhi at bottom

New Delhi, November 16: Attributing water conservation as one of the biggest problems that India has been facing these days, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) study has released a report. The report highlights Mumbai as the highest in the quality of water among capital cities in states where samples of tap water were tested. Following Mumbai, Hyderabad is the second in the list. The report is a study on quality of piped drinking water being supplied in 21 cities across the country, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan said on Saturday that in Delhi and 13 state capitals, tap water is "undrinkable".

The only metropolitan city where people can drink tap water safely is Mumbai as all its samples complied with Indian standards, the minister said. The Minister further added, “Samples were taken from 11 places in Delhi. All the samples have failed, but all samples of Mumbai are clear. Tap water of Mumbai is drinkable.”

 

Ram Vilas Paswan said that 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.

Paswan has reportedly written to state governments asking them to clarify what help his government can provide to make tap water drinkable. "People should get pure water from the tap. There should be no water that causes diseases," he said. The samples were taken from the capital city of 20 states apart from the national capital. "It was done in keeping with the objectives of the Jal Jeevan Mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," the minister said.

The minister said in the first phase, the samples of drinking water were drawn from various locations across Delhi and in the second phase, samples were drawn from 20 state capitals, and sent for testing as per Indian Standard.

In Europe and other developed countries, it is clearly written whether tap water is potable or not. In India, there is no such certification.