The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : NIC roped in to help monitor water quality

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Friday, Sep 11, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

NIC roped in to help monitor water quality

J.S. Ifthekhar

About 30 sample takers go around the city collecting water samples randomly
300 to 400 points examined daily by Board’s Quality Assurance and Testing wing

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has decided to keep a tab on its staff who collect water samples and test its quality. An average of 1,500 samples are collected everyday and the same tested for presence of residual chlorine.

But the authorities are not sure from where exactly these samples are taken and how many tests done everyday.

With a view to fixing responsibility, the sample collectors will now be asked to feed the information and forward it to the head office immediately.

The National Informatics Centre has been roped in to develop a simple, but effective application that can be put in the mobile phones carried by the sample collectors. All that they have to do is to key in the door number, area and residual chlorine in the water sample collected by them and send it across to the Board office.

“This is an easy solution. At the end of the day we will know how many samples are collected and from where,” says Board’s managing director M.T. Krishna Babu.

There are about 30 sample takers who go around the city and randomly collect the water samples. About 300 to 400 points are examined daily by the Board’s Quality Assurance and Testing wing. And on the basis of the monitoring data, managers of different reservoirs are advised to adjust the booster chlorination to ensure the presence of a minimum of 0.2 ppm of chlorine in the tail-end taps.

The NIC has already developed the application and it will be put to use after giving training to the staff. “Next week we will start working on this device,” Mr. Krishna Babu said.

After the Bholakpur incident, people are not ready to accept the Board’s word and are checking the chlorine level in water on their own. Therefore, the Board has decided to improve monitoring of quality of water supplied by it.

With a large number of water-borne diseases, including viral fevers, dengue, chikungunya prevailing in the city, authorities do not want to take any chances with the quality of water.

The NIC application would help keep a close tab on its staff and also generate a data base at the end of the day, it is said.

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