Drinking water in Meghalaya safe: Centre in Lok Sabha
From Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Nov 30: Meghalaya has not reported any habitation with iron contaminants in drinking water sources beyond permissible limit as on date, Union Minister for Jal Shakti V Somanna said.
He made the statement in a written reply to a question from Voice of the People Party (VPP) MP, Ricky Andrew J Syngkon in the Parliament recently.
Earlier, a report of the State Food Testing Laboratory in Shillong had revealed that the residents of 44 major localities were consuming hazardous water as the water samples collected from these localities showed the presence of harmful Coliform and E coli organisms with low pH value and high levels of iron, indicating the water is unsafe to drink.
Later, the government called for an emergency review meeting to address the issue. The minister said while allocating funds to the states and the union territories (UTs) in a particular financial year, 10% weightage is given to the population residing in habitations affected by chemical contaminants, including iron affected habitations.
He also said that the states and the UTs have been advised to install community water purification plants as an interim measure in habitations where planning, implementation and commissioning of piped water supply schemes based on a safe water source takes time.
This is to provide potable water to every household to meet their drinking and cooking requirements.
Under Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), states and UTs can utilise up to 2% of their annual allocation of funds for Water Quality Monitoring & Surveillance activities inter alia for the setting up and strengthening of water quality testing laboratories, procurement of equipment, instruments, chemicals, glassware, consumables, hiring of skilled manpower, surveillance by community using field test kits, awareness generation, educational programmes on water quality, accreditation/recognition of laboratories, etc, the minister said.
He said the states and the UTs have been advised to carry out testing of water quality on a regular basis at source level as well as delivery level and take the remedial action wherever necessary to ensure that the water supplied to households is of prescribed quality.
Syngkon wanted to know if the government has any proposal to provide iron filters and install iron filtration systems to ensure access to potable water in the regions with high iron content in water, particularly in Meghalaya.
He also asked if the government is collaborating with authorities in Meghalaya to conduct regular testing of water sources to monitor iron levels and if so, the plan to allocate dedicated funding for this purpose.
The minister said since August 2019, the central government, in partnership with the states, is implementing JJM.
In 2023-24, as reported by the state governments on the JJM-WQMIS portal, 51,836 water samples were tested in water testing labs and 17,172 others were tested using Field Testing Kits (FTKs). Similarly, in 2024-25 (as on 25.11.2024), 27,610 samples in labs and 11,860 samples using FTKs have been tested, he added.