E-Coli Bacteria, Aluminium In Water That We Drink

Bhopal: Thanks to the continued apathy of Bhopal Municipal Corporation, residents in the state capital are left with no option but to drink turbid water with presence of bacteria ‘E coliform’ and even traces of aluminium that are beyond BIS standard limits. Water samples from the state capital was among those from 13 state capitals that failed Union government’s purity test, the results of which were released recently.

The report has only vindicated the stand of experts who have been complaining about the large number of cases of water-borne and gastro-intestinal diseases in the state capital and linking it to the quality of piped water supplied by the municipal corporation.

Only investment in new technology and manpower can make water supply parameters to match with Indian Standard for Drinking Water specification IS 10500 :1991.

Three days after the Union government released the report, the civic body is yet to take corrective action.

Except for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, (SCADA) system deployed at Idgah water filtration plant, all the water filtration systems in the state capital are manual and are manned by contractual staff.

“BMC filtration plants are manned by contractual staff. There has been no appointment of head operator for over a decade. BMC has two dozen filtration plants,” said a BMC water works official.

Chemical purchase for filtration is being sourced locally. For instance, alum or aluminium sulphate, used to clean water is being sourced locally. A slap of locally made alum lasts less than 20 minutes. BMC spends around Rs 40 crore on filtration of water from Kolar, Upper Lake and Narmada.