The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Wednesday said it has collected over 4,200 water samples from across the city for testing in the last 10 days and more than 98 per cent of them were found fit for drinking. DJB carried out the exercise to allay the fear that the water being supplied by the DJB was unsafe for drinking in the light of the statement of the Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Bilas Paswan.
DJB vice chairman Dinesh Mohaniya term the earlier Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) report as a mischievous effort to malign the image of the Delhi Government just before the elections and to serve commercial interests of the RO (Reverse Osmosis) manufacturers.
"DJB collected five samples from each of the wards, strictly following the ‘Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)’ and in the presence of media persons. The sealed samples were tested in the laboratories of the DJB on 29 parameters," he said, adding that out of 4,204 samples, 4128 were tested satisfactory and 76 samples proved unsatisfactory'.
The high rate of satisfactory samples (98.19) is comfortably within the WHO norms i.e. 96 per cent. Only 1.81 per ecnt of the samples turned to be unsatisfactory", he said. According to a the data, the department collected 536 samples from Wazirabad, 663 from Haiderpur, 723 from Tahirpur, 756 from Nangloi, 500 from Dwarka, 302 from Bawana, 443 from Greater Kailash and 281 from Okhla. Out of these, 98.19 per cent samples were found satisfactory.
Mohaniya said "BIS data shows that it didn't follow the SOP and even violated the norms of WHO to conclude that Delhi's water is not potable by testing just 11 samples. BIS collected these samples in an unscientific way without transparency. As everyone later came to know, it even made false claims on the said sample collection and announced in hurry that water in Delhi is not drinkable. In fact this report was a mischievous effort to malign the Delhi government just before the assembly elections and serve the commercial interests of the RO manufacturers. In an appeal to quash an NGT order in the Supreme Court, RO manufacturers quoted the BIS report." Dinesh Mohaniya added.
"Names, phone numbers, and addresses of house owners were recorded to ensure transparency. The sealed samples were tested in three laboratories of the DJB on 29 parameters," he said.
Replying to a question on the joint inspection of water samples, the DJB vice chairman said, "How can we trust BIS... It doesn't have its own labs, and conducts the test in the labs of RO manufacturers.
How can we expect a fair deal? For RO manufacturers, it is essential to prove that Delhi's water is not potable, so that they can sell more RO purifiers in Delhi."
Mohaniya had earlier said the Water Quality India Association (WQIA), a body of RO companies, had approached the Supreme Court against the May 2019 order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that banned the use of reverse osmosis systems where drinking water supply had total dissolved solids (TDS) less than 500 mg per litre. "The WQIA presented this BIS report before the apex court. It is a very strange coincidence," he had said.