The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Delhi Jal Board water not safe for drinking'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 09, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Delhi Jal Board water not safe for drinking'

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, JULY 8. The water supplied by Delhi Jal Board to the Capital's residents is not safe for drinking and is highly contaminated, according to interim reports of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases which recently picked up water samples from various parts of Delhi.

However, the DJB has raised serious objections to the findings and argued that in many cases the water samples were not theirs and that they were not taken during the period of supply. It is understood that both the prestigious institutes picked up samples of water at the request of the Delhi Government in the wake of reports of an increasing number of cases of waterborne diseases, particularly cholera, in the Capital this year.

Highly placed DJB sources said the interim reports that have also been sent to the Delhi Government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi found "high levels of contamination in water samples" picked by the two prestigious scientific institutes.

According to the interim report, the team of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases of Kolkata isolated "vibrio cholerate" from the tap water of Sarita Vihar in South Delhi. But from Sangam Vihar, also in South Delhi, there were reports of tap water contamination but "vibrio cholerate" was not isolated. "Molecular typing of the outbreak of current cholera strains in Delhi is in progress," the report said.

Referring to investigations that there was no history of secondary cases in the family, the report is believed to have said that most cases occurred in areas where there were unhygienic sanitary conditions and scarcity of water supply. The report also revealed that contamination in many cases was due to leaking of sewer pipelines into water supply. "It probably indicates that the contamination was because of use of booster pumps by people to extract water stored in the pipeline, which sucks other material from the pipeline that many times include sewer. There is no contamination of our water if samples are taken correctly," the DJB official claimed.

Water samples lifted by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases also indicated that they were highly contaminated and the content of chlorine was highly inadequate as a result such a large number of cases of water-borne diseases were reported in Delhi this year, officials said. It also pointed out that the water supply lines of DJB most of the time either passed through drains or touched sewer lines, thus increasing chances of contamination.

Claiming that the water treatment and quality check was done as per standards prescribed by the Union Government and the World Health Organisation, the DJB officials alleged that the contamination in the water if any was mainly because the residents have not changed their water pipeline for decades. "The fault lies at the consumers end. We would soon launch a drive to remove old pipes that connect our supply line to the consumers household," the official said.