Amid innumerable complaints of contaminated water being supplied in many areas across the national Capital, Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials have denied any negligence on their part and said that consumers need to be aware of their responsibilities as well.
listing reasons for water contamination a senior DJB official told The Pioneer, "Old pipelines have a shelf life of 15 years, after which they rust and develop holes causing leakages, leading to water wastage and health hazards due to water contamination. We have been advising people to replace existing pipes if older than 15 years with medium density polyethene pipes in order to avoid water contamination”.
“It has been a very common practice to switch on the booster pumps during odd hours. This not only increases water bills but due to high air pressure it damages pipes also and most importantly it may pull out dust and littering from the pipes that can further reach to tank and contaminate water," the official; added. The official further said that DJB has taken steps to aware people about it by various means including social media.
He also said that DJB's responsibility is to provide clean and potable water supply to the customers, following the standard of drinking water as laid down by the 'Bureau of Indian Standard' "The guidelines laid down by the 'Central Public Health and Environment Engineering Organisation' (CPHEEO) is also taken into consideration. Also in our house testing the quantity of arsenic, lead, cadmium, nitrate and total dissolved solids were not found beyond the acceptable limits," he said.
"Checking corrosion and leakage in the house service pipelines and changing pipes after every 15 years of installation from ferrule to tap by a licensed plumber are some of the measures to avoid water contamination," he said.
However, residents of the affected areas claimed that the breakage of pipelines and outlived water pipe system lines of the DJB allow mixing of sewage water with drinking water and even after several complaints, it has not been fixed.
Residents of north-west Delhi's Bhalaswa resettlement colony, Wazirabad, Gopalpur village, NehruVihar, Gandhi Vihar, Azadpur, Adarsh Nagar, and other surrounding areas, are being supplied contaminated water (black in colour), claimed that it has caused various water-borne diseases in the area.
Experts said that in most places, water pipes are running alongside and crossing sewage lines and drains in Delhi, which makes the water supply susceptible to sewage contamination. They also said that most of the water contamination can be traced to "old rusted service pipe connections of the consumers" which also affects the main supply line.
The pressure in main water pipes usually prevent anything else from getting in the pipe but when the pressure drop, water surrounding the pipe can get mixes in supplied water through the hole in a damaged section of pipe. The damaged or leaking pipes resulted in huge water loss also but instead focusing to fix it, the DJB is passing the buck to consumers, many residents said.