Jal Shakti Ministry to focus on water testing

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 29

Amid implementation of its Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) to provide piped drinking water to every rural household, the Union Jal Shakti Ministry has mounted "Innovation Challenge" to develop portable devices for water testing.

The Ministry said the challenge will be in partnership with the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.

"The main objective of the exercise is to bring an innovative, modular, and cost-effective solution to develop portable devices that can be used at the household level to test the drinking water quality instantly, easily and accurately," a Ministry official involved with JJM said on Monday.

Water quality testing is one of the components of JJM.

The innovation challenge aims to ensure that water sources are tested at various locations, at different levels.

The Uniform Drinking Water Quality Protocol, 2019 has specified certain parameters to be monitored for assuring portability of drinking water.

The data collected through the testings will provide inputs to policy framers to design programs which address the water contamination issues.

A study conducted by the National Jal Jeevan Mission of the Ministry suggests that people receiving piped water supply in their homes do not have any means to test the potability of water coming from their taps.

"This leads to a situation wherein, quite often, people are reluctant to consume tap water directly, the Ministry official said.

Since the announcement of the JJM on August 15, last year till December 23, 2020, about three crore households have been provided tap water connections in the country.

This is an increase in the tap water supply from about three crores (17 per cent) in August 2019 to 6.13 Crore (32 per cent) rural households.

Further, every household in 20 districts, 425 blocks, 34 thousand Gram Panchayats and 64 thousand villages of the country now have access to tap water connection.