The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Corporation to scale down water testing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Corporation to scale down water testing

Saptarishi Bhattacharya

Availability of good drinking water `has dwindled' The samples are drawn from various drinking water sources in the city by food inspectors and sent to the Public Analyst Laboratory for analysis.

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation proposes to scale down its target of water samples required to monitor the drinking water standards in the city.

The Standing Committee on Health recommended earlier this month that the target of samples could be brought down from 10,000 to 1,200 a year. The proposal will be placed before the Council when it meets on Wednesday.

The civic body admits that it has not been able to meet the target due to a shortage of manpower and laboratory technicians at the Public Analyst Laboratory at Ripon Buildings.

The move comes in the wake of an objection raised by the local body funds audit in 2000-01 that the Corporation had suffered losses as the target was not met.

The samples are drawn from various drinking water sources in the city by food inspectors and sent to the Public Analyst Laboratory for analysis. The cost of the test is recovered from the establishment from where the sample is taken.

Saidai P. Ravi, Congress councillor, said the move would affect the general health of the people in Chennai. Already, there is a water supply crisis and several commercial enterprises were supplying packaged water to citizens. So it was important that water quality should be monitored in the larger interests of public health.

The sources of pollution and contamination had only increased while the availability of good drinking water had dwindled. "Is it not the fundamental duty of the Corporation to monitor the standard of water that we drink," Mr. Ravi asked.

An official of the Corporation's health department, however, allayed fears that the reduced target would have an impact on monitoring water quality.

While admitting that the earlier target set in 1996 could not be achieved with the available manpower, he said the focus would now be on the "quality" of the samples rather than the quantity.

The civic body has 10 sanitary inspectors designated as food inspectors qualified to test water samples.

The official said the department would ensure that the samples were collected only from places where the water quality was doubtful.

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