New Delhi: Eighteen percent of water
supplied by the Delhi Jal Board is unfit for drinking and
every fifth person in the city is consuming contaminated
water, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's Public Health
Committee revealed on Thursday.
At a time when 60 percent of the households in Delhi
consume Delhi Jal Board water, it comes as a surprise that 18
per cent of water supplied is polluted as it contained
human feces.
This came to light after the MCD's Public Health
Committee carried out a test of samples of Jal Board Water.
"Consuming contaminated water can cause water-borne
diseases like cholera, gastroenteritis, typhoid, jaundice
among others. We wanted to find if the water supplied by Delhi
Jal Board was drinkable or not and as such 616 samples were
lifted from various corners of Delhi. Of these 111 samples
were found to contain fecal contamination," Dr VK Mongia,
chairman, MCD health committee said.
"The colony count ie measurement of the growth of
bacteria in a water sample revealed that every 100ml sample of
water contained more than 10 bacteria most of them because of
fecal contamination. By all standards such water is unfit for
for consumption," he said.
The samples were collected between January to February
2011 and were tested by the Public Health Laboratory of MCD.
BJP president Vijender Gupta today asked the
government to look into the matter. He also said that it was a
criminal offence on the part of the government as no concrete
step has been taken yet.
Monga pointed out that the feces from the sewerage
mixes with most of the waters that is being supplied in Delhi
that led to such contamination.
"Water contamination happens because of interrupted
water supply, corroded water pipes, mixing of sewer plant pipe
lines and water pipe lines," he said.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, March 10, 2011, 23:54