Contaminated water is damaging public health
Reports of water supply to the Parliament complex, the President's Estate, the Prime Minister's residence and the iconic Connaught Place market area being disrupted because it was too polluted to be even treated for human consumption have, understandably, made headlines in recent days. large amounts of industrial waste had been dumped into the Yamuna river in Haryana, as a result of which ammonia levels in the water had shot up so high that two of Delhi's water treatment plants had to be shut down, disrupting supply to large parts of the city.
But the fact is that contaminated drinking water is an inalienable fact of life for an unacceptably large number of Indians, at least 1,600 of whom die from waterborne diseases everyday. It doesn't matter if you live in the national capital or a tier two city or a remote desert hamlet; there is enough evidence to suggest that the water flowing through your tap may not be fit for consumption.
A recent report by Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare, for example, has revealed that drinking water to 14,132 habitations across 19 States contains fluoride above permissible levels. Consequently, thousands of people across the country, from Rajasthan (which has the number of such habitations) and Maharashtra to Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh to Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam are at risk of debilitating diseases such as skeletal fluorosis. And this is just the extent of damage that is being done by one particular pollutant.
Every other day, there are reports of individuals becoming terribly sick after consuming contaminated water; in fact, such reports are so common now that they don't even evince a response from the public. Take for example, the largely neglected outbreak of jaundice, a water-borne disease, in Odisha's Sambalpur district which has claimed 22 lives, affected 1,900 people, and taken on epidemic proportions.
In Madhya Pradesh last week, more than 200 children from two villages in Mandsaur district, fell violently ill, reportedly after drinking contaminated water but the news barely got any traction. Only days before that, in the national capital, the Delhi High Court chided the Delhi Chief Secretary for making “tardy progress” in cleaning up the artificial sewage-lake that has formed in the Tughlakabad Ridge area and is polluting the wooded place.
Earlier in the month, a parliamentary panel headed by BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi found that water contaminated with arsenic impacts at least seven crore people across six States. Prior to that, the Comptroller and Auditor-General criticised Indian Railways for polluting groundwater with unsafe practices. The list is endless but the authorities don't seem to care much. The public too has largely accepted the fact that potable water is not going to come from the Government. Only time will tell if the Clean India campaign will also bring clean drinking water for the public.