Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday said that tap water in Delhi and several other cities did not comply with the requirements according to a study conducted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
"Mumbai tops ranking released by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for quality of tap water. Delhi is at the bottom, with 11 out of 11 samples failing on 19 parameters," Paswan said while addressing a press conference here on Saturday.
"We were getting complaints regarding water from all over the country. We asked for some samples of water from Delhi. The tap water from Delhi did not meet the Indian Standards. Later, we asked for water samples from all state headquarters," he said.
The minister said that the government aims to provide clean drinking water to the people.
"Most children fall sick due to water-related diseases. The water quality standards is not mandatory. It should be made mandatory. We have also asked the chief ministers of states to order an investigation into it," he said.
The study was conducted as per directions of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs Food & PD to check the quality of piped drinking water being supplied in the country in keeping with the objectives of the Jal Jeevan Mission.
In the first phase, samples of drinking water were drawn from various locations across Delhi and in the second phase samples were drawn from 20 other state capitals, and sent for testing as per Indian Standards.
"In the city of Delhi, all the 11 samples drawn did not comply with the requirements of the Indian Standard. The samples failed in several of the parameters. All the 10 samples drawn from Mumbai were found to comply with the requirements of the IS," an official release said.
In Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Raipur, Amravati, and Shimla, one or more samples did not comply with the requirements.
None of the samples drawn from Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhinagar, Lucknow, Jammu, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chennai, Kolkata complied with the requirements.
In the third phase, samples from the capital cities of north eastern states and SmartCities identified by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have been drawn and are being tested. The results of the study are expected by January 15, 2020, read the release.
Paswan said that it is proposed to test samples drawn from all district headquarters of the country, and their testing is planned to be completed by 15th August 2020 in the fourth phase.
( With inputs from ANI )