The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Saturday started collecting 3,000 samples of water from different parts of the city for quality test.
The samples are being collected following a study by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which stated that Delhi’s water was the “most unsafe among 21 State capitals”, based on 11 water samples from the city.
The BIS study has kicked up a political blame game between the AAP government in Delhi and the BJP-led Centre.
DJB Vice-Chairman Dinesh Mohaniya collected water samples from DDA flats in Madangir and two other locations on Saturday. “The DJB is entrusted with the responsibility of laying water and sewer lines in unauthorised and regularised colonies along with providing clean and potable drinking water to Delhi,” he said.
Mr. Mohaniya had on Friday announced that the DJB would collect samples to ensure that every house got clean water and that the “propaganda” being spread through a “fake survey” by the BIS could be fully exposed. Five samples from each ward of Delhi will be collected and it will be tested as per established norms and Standard Operating Procedures, the DJB said.
Though there was a plan to do a joint water sample collection by the Centre and the Delhi government, Mr. Mohaniya told The Hindu that currently there are no talks happening on that front. “The results of the samples will be out in 48 hours. Our third-party auditor, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, is also testing samples and they have also passed the tests,” he added.
On Friday, the DJB had said that though water samples collected from 11 locations were marked unsafe for drinking by the BIS, the Board had tested samples from nine locations and eight of them were found to be “fit” for drinking.
Mr. Mohaniya had also said that the BIS findings could be a “carefully orchestrated” build-up to protect the interests of Reverse Osmosis manufacturing companies and termed Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s actions as “suspicious”.
