The Delhi Jal Board has refuted claims made by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation that it is supplying poor quality water. The DJB has described the Corporation’s claims as “motivated and incorrect”.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the DJB said there was no joint water testing exercise undertaken by it and the North Delhi Municipal Corporation. “It has not been corroborated by the DJB Zonal Staff and no such exercise as claimed has been carried out in the presence of the concerned DJB officers nor have the results claimed been shared and verified with the DJB. However, the DJB is trying to ascertain the authenticity of the joint sampling claimed to have been carried out by the municipal corporation,” said a spokesperson.
The DJB also claimed that during a recent joint sampling exercise carried out by it and the municipal body in Rohini, Pitampura and Saraswati Vihar, out of the 77 water samples lifted and tested at the consumers’ end, all were found fit for drinking. “It is interesting to note that, as claimed in the report, the total number of samples lifted is 6,922, out of which 3,387 were from North Delhi Municipal Corporation area, while 3,535 were from the rest of Delhi. Of these, 507 samples have allegedly failed. Out of the total failed samples 487 are from the North Delhi Municipal Corporation area and only 20 have failed from the rest of Delhi, which would indicate that the failure rate for the rest of Delhi, excluding North Delhi Municipal Corporation area, is only .0056 per cent. This seems to indicate that the report is not based on actual facts and appears to be highly biased,” the spokesperson said.
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The water utility claimed it lifts about 300 samples a day and as part of increased surveillance for summer and monsoon months, the number of samples being lifted has been increased to 450 a day. “These samples are lifted every day from various locations from all parts of the city, including from the consumers end, by the Treatment and Quality Control Wing which is an independent unit. Testing of water samples is governed by BIS standards IS: 10500:2003. Water is tested for physico-chemical and bacteriological parameters,” the spokesperson said.