North civic body seizes around 600 trolleys selling impure water

NEW DELHI: The samples of drinking water collected from 572 licensed water trolleys in the city have failed the safety parameters tests conducted by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The tests, conducted in the last six months, have shown the presence of element such as Escherichia coli (also known as E.coli,) bacteria, which can lead to diarrhea and absence of chlorine.

“The water tested was found to have an unhealthy proportion of elements like chlorine. Ideally, drinking water should have chlorine in proportion of 1 particle per million but in most of the trolleys we found the quantity to be very less. After the test reports, we confiscated most of the trolleys and imposed heavy challans on the owners,” said a senior north corporation official.

“Absence of chlorine in the water can lead to diseases such as Typhoid, Hepatitis A and B and cholera,” said BK Hazarika, medical health officer of South Corporation.

The issue of quality of water being sold by most of the licenced water booths in city was raised in the standing committee meeting on Wednesday.

The north corporation officials, along Delhi Jal Board members, also tested water being supplied through pipelines to houses. “Officials from the civic body and jal board collected samples from 2,679 north Delhi neighbourhoods and 16 of them failed to meet the safety parameters. The reports were shared with senior DJB officials also,” said Veena Virmani, standing committee chairman, North Corporation.

Senior Congress councillor Mukesh Goel, who raised the matter of contaminated water being sold by the water trolleys in city during the standing committee meeting, demanded the civic body present the detail report of survey conducted by civic agency to check the quality of drinking water. A North Corporation health officer informed that they have issued licenses to 1,623 water trolleys in its jurisdiction. The civic health department has conducted quality check on 572 such trolleys.