A State level Water Testing laboratory was today inaugurated at Ranchi to examine the quality of water being supplied in all districts of Jharkhand. The laboratory will be used to test 10 per cent of the total quantity of water tested at District Water Testing laboratories.
The state of the art laboratory has been constructed at a cost of Rs 40-lakh and it will test minerals, acidity and presence of bacteria in the water supplied by Public Health & Sanitation Department.
“National Rural Drinking water programme envisages making adequate and quality drinking water available to all and to ensure that water qualities of all reservoirs are being tested by Village Water & Sanitation Committee. It is important to re-test quality of water found polluted by the committee and for that this testing laboratories including at districts are being setup,” said Minister DWSD Jai Prakash Bhai Patel.
The department has equipped VWSCs with field water testing kit to test water at the reservoirs for contamination and pollution level. However, limitations of the kit and district water testing laboratories the department has equipped the state laboratory with equipments such as spectrophotometer, Ion meter, Turbidity Meter to check fluoride, iron, chloride, nitrate content besides examining the level of acidity, hardness of the water supplied in rural as well as urban areas. The laboratory can test water on sixteen parameters with the help of specialized employees.
“The testing laboratory will be helpful in identifying polluted sources of water so that people of those areas can be stopped from drinking the water,” added the Minister.
Apart from functioning as the super centre for testing water the laboratory will be open for common man who can use the state-of-the-art technology to get the water used in his household tested by paying Rs 1,600.