Gulp it down: Mumbai gets purest tap water

When it comes to water, Mumbai is the luckiest. Not because we live by the sea, but we get the purest of tap water. “Mumbai tops the ranking released by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for quality of tap water. Delhi is at the bottom, with 11 out of 11 samples failing on 19 parameters,” said Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday. According to an official release, all the 10 samples drawn from Mumbai were found to comply with the requirements of the Indian Standards. Following complaints filed from across the country, the bureau conducted a test by collecting samples from around 21 main cities to the check the purity of tap water. “We were getting complaints regarding water from all over the country. We asked for some samples of water from Delhi. The tap water from Delhi did not meet the Indian Standards. Later, we asked for water samples from all state headquarters,” he said.

The study was conducted as per directions of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to check the quality of piped drinking water being supplied in the country in keeping with the objectives of Jal Jeevan Mission. The BIS report states that the water supplied by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) pipes were the purest. In Gandhi Nagar, the water from the canal was also found to be contaminated. The report further suggests that there is clay-mix in some of the samples. “Most children fall sick due to water-borne diseases. The water quality standards should be made mandatory. We have also asked the chief ministers of states to order an investigation into it,” said Paswan while addressing a press conference here on Saturday.

In the first phase, samples of drinking water were drawn from various locations across Delhi and in the second phase samples were drawn from 20 other state capitals for testing.

“All the 10 samples drawn from Mumbai were found to comply with the requirements of the Indian Standards,” an official release said.

One or more samples from Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Raipur, Amravati, and Shimla, did not comply with the requirements.

None of the samples drawn from Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhinagar, Lucknow, Jammu, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chennai, Kolkata complied with the requirements.

In the third phase, samples from the capital cities of some other north-eastern states and Smart Cities identified by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have been drawn and are being tested. The results of the study are expected by January 15, 2020, stated the release.