The water war in Delhi continues unabated with Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday coming out with a team of 32 technical experts and asking Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to name his own team of experts (non political person) to conduct a joint inspection to test Delhi’s quality of water which the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has termed as undrinkable.
Paswan said a list of 32 technical experts from BIS has been given to Delhi Jal Board to take samples of drinking water to test quality standards. “The committee comprising technical experts from the BIS and the Delhi Jal Board(DJB), should be set up immediately to take samples from across 70 constituencies and all wards in the national capital by end of this month,” Paswan added. The Union Minister asked Delhi Chief Minister to make BIS mandatory if he thinks water supplied in the national capital is 100% pure.
On Wednesday, the AAP announced that it will also set up 32 teams to collect drinking water samples from across the city and the test results will be put in public domain within a month even as the issue reached the Parliament with Vijay Goel displaying a bottle of water in the Rajya Sabha leading to sharp exchanges with opposition.
Rejecting the nomination of Dinesh Mohania, MLA, vice chairman of DJB, Paswan said the nominee should be a “non-political” individual and the water samples should be tested at a Govt accredited laboratory and that the reports should also be made public.
Kejriwal wrote to Paswan on Wednesday nominating Delhi Jal Board (DJB) vice-chairman Dinesh Mohaniya and member Shalabh Kumar Sharma for the joint committee to be formed by the Union Government to test water quality in the national capital.
Paswan also took a swipe at Kejriwal for targeting the study. “I haven’t done quality check, country’s reputed institution Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has done it. BIS has developed around 25,000 quality standards for various products and services ,” Paswan said. The Minister accused Kejriwal for politicising the water quality issue, saying “baseless allegations” are being made against him and challenged the Delhi Chief Minister to make BIS standard mandatory if water supplied in the national capital is 100 per cent pure.
“Kejriwal is committing more mistakes to hide one mistake. He is making baseless allegations against me,” Paswan said.
He also criticised Kejriwal for raising questions about the credibility of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), an autonomous body that has developed around 25,000 quality standards for various products and services.
BIS officials on Thursday claimed that they indeed took a sample from one Deepak Rai’s house. BIS officials claimed to have call details and security entry made by the BIS team which collected the water sample.
The Union minister and Kejriwal have been involved in a war of words over water quality in the city after Paswan shared findings of a BIS study, which suggested that Delhi’s tap water had failed quality tests. According to the study, Delhi, along with Kolkata and Chennai, failed in almost 10 out of 11 quality parameters of drinking water.