Around 14,000 families in Manickal panchayat will soon be able to gauge the quality of water they consume with the civic body embarking on a mission to clinically test the quality of water sourced from local wells and that supplied by the Kerala Water Authority.
The panchayat with assistance from the Communication and Capacity Development (CCD) unit, a wing of the Water Resources Department, has started testing the quality of water in the houses.
After completing the testing process, each family would be given a card, indicating parameters prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards, M.P. Pramod, secretary of the panchayat, said in a press release.
Field visitsThe CCD had supplied four to five water testing kits for each ward. The kits would be given to trained ASHA workers, who would be making field visits to collect water samples, he said.
The initiative was taken up as general policy measure and not because of any deterioration in water quality in the area.
“The quality of water is good and we wanted to maintain it. The tests will be conducted at frequent intervals and any change in parameters will help us to take corrective measures,” he said.
ISO CertificateThe issuance of water quality cards would be another achievement to its credit after the local body getting the ISO certificate. The panchayat had become the first local body in the district and eighth in the State to secure ISO certification for quality management, including rendering speedy welfare assistance to people.
The International Organisation for Standardisation had accorded the status to the grama panchayat for adopting citizen-centric administrative and transparent policy measures.
The panchayat’s initiative to inform beneficiaries the status of applications through SMS was also taken into account during the selection process.
