Hyderabad: Is packaged drinking water safe?

Hyderabad: Have you ever considered whether the packaged drinking water supplied in the houses and offices is healthy or not?

GHMC has put a question mark about the purity of packaged water.

According to the statement made by the officials of the Food and Safety Department of GHMC, if the water supplied by 1000 water plants is tested, not even 30 would be found suitable for supplying potable water.

Giving the details of the regulation of setting up of water plants, the officials specified that the first and foremost condition is to obtain permission from the Revenue Department.  

After this permission is obtained, a microbiology laboratory has to set up for which a microbiologist has to be appointed. His duty is to examine the water produced in the plant from time-to-time.

It is also essential for any water plant to obtain the certificate from the Bureau of Indian Standards about safety and purity of water.

If all the above-mentioned criteria are applied, not more than 30 plants would be available to fulfill these condition.

The major problem for running a water plant is that every year, each such plant has to pay Rs. 2.5 lakh for the renewal of the certificate. It is deplorable that there is no such mechanism to ascertain whether the water is potable or not and also there is no system of dealing with complaints about testing the purity of drinking water.