Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Law to improve water quality soon

Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran says the government ill ensure water quality.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government is planning a legislation to improve the quality of drinking water available in the State.

In an article to mark the ‘World Water Day’ on Saturday, Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran said the government had taken preservation of water quality as a top priority and wanted to do this with public participation.

Each individual should play a part in protecting the water sources and become part of programmes aimed at protecting the purity of drinking water, the Minister said.

The Minister said the government would focus on river pollution this year and would draw up various schemes to protect the rivers and ensure their sustainability.

Important among the proposals under consideration was the formation of river basin authorities.

The government was also planning to bring penal provisions to address the problem of river pollution on the ‘polluter pay principal’ principle. Under the initiative, persons who polluted rivers would have to bear the cost of purification of the river water, Mr. Premachandran said.

He said the government was also planning to revise the rules and procedures relating to drinking water supply.

Mr. Premachandran pointed out that the Water Resources Department had launched ‘Sujala,’ a scheme aimed at bringing about people’s participation in maintenance of quality of water taken from draw wells and bore wells.

This had been done in the light of reports that the percentage of fluoride, nitrate and iron found in groundwater was much beyond permissible limits, the Minister pointed out.

The government, he said, was aware of the need for low-cost water treatment and quality control facilities and had launched an initiative to develop decentralised activities to address the problem of water pollution.

The government had also taken a strong view of reports that drinking water available all over the State had a high presence of e-coli bacteria. Those who dumped waste into rivers and other water bodies, which met the water needs of the entire population, would have to be given exemplary punishment, he said.

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