Water

As a part of a WaterAid funded Swatch Delhi Swasth Delhi project, FORCE has made Naari Nirmal Awaas Samitis (Women’s WASH groups) in 20 unauthorised slums inDelhi. The Samiti works towards improving the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene conditions in the area. Sustained capacity building efforts have led to making the Samiti (especially its key leaders) informed and empowered to work with community, government and political functionaries for their area.

Recently, water testing kits were given to the NNAS for testing pH, TDS, Fluoride and e-coli testing in water sources of the area. The sources tested included pipeline supply from Delhi Jal Board sources, tankers supplied by DJB, tubewells and handpumps.

Since the slums are unauthorized, the supply sources are not ‘official’ – people have made illegal connections into supply lines or have taken over borewells made from discretionary MLA/Counciller funds. The government does not take responsibility of ensuring quality of water.

The results were very bad. A summary is given below:

(For reference: BIS Norms for the parameters tested

• pH-   6.5-8.5                     TDS- 500 ppm

• Fluoride- 1-1.5 mg/l           No sample should contain E. coli )

Out of 20 slums – pathogens – E-Coli – were present in atleast 1 or more sample in 18 slums

• Out of 20, 8 (40%) were totally dependent on tubewells. Only 3 (15%) got adequate (upto 300 l / family) water from supply lines (legal / illegal)
• No slum gets DJB bills – which means connections are illegal. DJB itself has laid pipelines for public standposts in 4 areas – the rest are all thefts from supply system (with tacit approval of djb, councillers etc)
• Out of 19 DJB supply & tanker samples, e-coli in 6 – approx 30% (surprisingly less considering the contamination levels in surrounding areas)
• In slums with open defecation or with a nullah nearby – E-coli in 70% borewell samples. Interestingly, many of the samples in these areas which were clear were those in/ near religious places
• In slums with nullahs, 100% E-coli in borewell samples.
• In all slums, atleast one or more borewell sample had TDS above 500.  This is bad because all slums are dependent on tubewells – infact for most, this is the only source of water.
• Out of the total borewell samples (42), TDS was higher than 500 for 31 (72%). Goes upto max of 1670.
• TDS was within limit for all samples of DJB supply
• Fluoride only in one handpump sample. At lower doses, fluoride can cause an increase in bone density and fragility.
• pH – pH levels high in 5 samples in South West  – means alkaline water – scaling in plumbing, bitterness etc

 The implications of this survey are:

1)     Source water contamination inDelhiis not limited to the Yamuna – groundwater is contaminated too (72% of samples taken)

2)     Government is largely to blame – toilets that open into nullahs directly,  overflowing septic tanks, leach pits / waste water soak pits , no provisions for toilets for people, no lifting of municpal waste, no option given of sewer connectivity – all these are issues that can only be handled by the government

3)     Nullahs must be cleaned – and connectivity to sewer lines provided to all settlements along it.

4)     There should be no e-coli at all in groundwater – its presence is totally because of poor municipal provisions indelhi

5)     People need water – so they take water illegally if they are not provided legally. This is the root cause of wastages, distribution losses and contamination

6)     The only solution is that a policy shift is needed – to accepting Safe Drinking Water as a right. Currently it is a ‘limited liability’ i.e. linked to the legal status of the dwelling. This is unacceptable.   Government should supply water to all – however, it may explore ‘community managed distribution systems’ where the community is given bulk supply and then handles internal distribution itself.

Water