The Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Shri Ram Vilas Paswan has always exhorted providing quality products to consumers which includes providing clean & safe drinking water for all. This is also in line with Jal Jeevan Mission, announced by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi which aims to provide tap water to all households by 2024. In order to ensure that clean and safe drinking water is provided to all, Department of Consumer Affairs decided to undertake a study through the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) on the quality of piped drinking water being supplied in the country and also rank the States, Smart Cities and even Districts based on the quality of tap water.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 capitalsand sent for testing as per Indian Standard 10500:2012 (Specification for DrinkingWater) as set by the BIS. Tests were conducted on various parameters such asOrganoleptic and Physical Tests,Chemical test, Toxic substances and Bacteriological tests in the first stage. A vast majority of the samples have failed to comply with the requirements of IS 10500:2012 in one or more parameters.In Delhi, all the 11samples drawn from various places did not comply with the requirements of the Indian Standard& failed on several parameters.
All the 10 samples drawn from Mumbai were found to comply with the requirements. In the cities of Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Raipur, Amravati and Shimla, one or more samples did not comply with the requirements of the Standard and none of the samples drawn from 13 of the State Capitals i.e. Chandigarh,Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhinagar, Lucknow, Jammu, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chennai, Kolkata complied with the requirements of the Indian Standard.Addressing media after releasing the report, Shri Paswan said that all should get clean drinking water and that is the objective of this activity. He said that the objective is not to demotivate anyone rather it to encourage State Governments to ensure quality potable tap water to all citizens. Shri Paswan further added that in the third phase, samples from Capital cities of North Eastern States and SmartCities identified by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have been drawn and are being tested. The result of these are expected by 15th January 2020. While in the fourth phase, it is proposed to test samples drawn from all the district headquarters of the country and their testing is planned to be completed by 15th August 2020.Shri Paswan also said that the Union Government wants to make BIS Standards mandatory for Tap Water so as to ensure quality drinking water for all households.