Is Delhi's Water Safe? Cityclueless As Netas Fight

Four conflicting reports in less than 2 months and political blame game leave citizens without an answer

- Gulam Jeelani And Ankit Yadav

Is the water we drink safe or not? Four reports in less than two months – with a split verdict – have left the Capital’s residents in a quandary. To add insult to injury, the pre-Assembly election politics surrounding the four studies has reached such a level that any objective assessment looks improbable.

In two of its reports, the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs said that the tap water samples from different locations of Delhi had failed to meet the quality norms. However, according to two other studies (one by Jal Shakti Ministry and the other by Delhi Government), the water supplied in Delhi’s taps is fit for drinking and is in fact better than European cities.

On Saturday, Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan released the second part of a Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) study which said that Delhi, along with Kolkata and Chennai, failed on almost 10 of 11 quality parameters that make drinking water safe. The study has sparked a political row, with the BJP and Congress accusing the Arvind Kejriwal government of supplying “unsafe” drinking water to residents of the city. On Sunday, posters were seen in parts of the National Capital that accused the AAP government of forcing people to drink “poisonous” water.

ORIGINS OF THE DISPUTE

On September 27, BIS officials said that in pre-liminary tests, tap water samples from 11 different locations of Delhi had failed to meet quality norms. BIS, the national body which frames quality standards, had collected samples for testing after Paswan said Delhi’s tap water was unfit to drink. The BIS said that the results were in line with Paswan’s pronouncement. “All the samples failed on 24 parameters which included total dissolved solids (TDS), pH value and odour, among other norms,” said a BIS official.