‘Tap water undrinkable in Delhi, 13 State capitals’
| Date :17-Nov-2019 |
NEW DELHI :
RELEASING a study on quality of piped drinking water being supplied in 21 cities across the country, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan said on Saturday that in Delhi and 13 State capitals, tap water is “undrinkable”. The only metropolitan city where people can drink tap water safely is Mumbai as all its samples complied with Indian standards. “Samples were taken from 11 places in Delhi. All the samples have failed, But all samples of Mumbai are clear. Tap water of Mumbai is drinkable,” said the Minister.
“None of the samples drawn from 13 of the State capitals -- Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhi Nagar, Lucknow, Jammu, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chennai and Kolkata -- complied with the requirements of the Indian Standard,” said Paswan. The minister said he has written to State Governments asking them to clarify what help his Government can provide to make tap water drinkable. “People should get pure water from the tap.
There should be no water that causes diseases,” he said. The samples were taken from the capital city of 20 States apart from the national capital. “It was done in keeping with the objectives of the Jal Jeevan Mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” the Minister said. The Minister said in the first phase, the samples of drinking water were drawn from various locations across Delhi and in the second phase, samples were drawn from 20 state capitals, and sent for testing as per Indian Standard.