Water & Sanitation: The Ministry of Jal Shakti has rolled out testing and monitoring guidelines for drinking water. This will allow people to test the water quality in their own taps at reasonable rates. The initiative is part of the Centre’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission; in which two percent of the INR 3.6 lakh crore budget has been earmarked for quality monitoring.
The samples tested by members of the public as well as government officials will create a nationwide database of water quality, said Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
However, at the moment, only 66 of the 2,033 water testing laboratories in the country are certified by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). To address this lacuna in infrastructure, the government has mandated that a network of NABL accredited labs be set up in every state, district, and block over the next year. At the panchayat level, teams of women in the village water and sanitation committees will be given field testing kits. The ministry will also permit state governments to include private players as part of the network, but tariff has been capped to ensure that they remain within the reach of the common person.
The suggested tariffs will allow a person to test a water sample’s pH level, turbidity, alkalinity, and hardness for a package rate of INR 50. Testing for the more dangerous arsenic, flouride, nitrate, or coliform bacteria will cost INR 100 each, while a package for all 16 water quality parameters will cost INR 600. The guidelines have also stipulated that the turnaround time for chemical tests should not be more than 24 hours, while that for biological contaminants must not exceed 48 hours.
In addition to the provision of voluntary tests by members of the public, officials have been mandated to do regular inspections. All the results from testing will be fed into the Water Quality Information Management System (WQMIS), a portal developed with the support of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). This will allow the test results to be shared with a citizen who requests it, the WQMIS database, as well as the local official deputed to take remedial action in case of contamination.
Read this article on why governments in South Asia must renew their focus on equitable access to water and sanitation to build resilient communities.
