Times of India: Gurgaon: Wednesday, October 29, 2014.
Forget tap
water, if you thought packaged drinking water was safe in the city, think
twice. Though only four samples of packaged drinking water were collected by
the food safety department from two units in Gurgaon in the last three years,
analysis showed that all were unfit for consumption, a Right to Information
(RTI) query has revealed.
"The
cases were reported and they are now before the court of chief judicial
magistrate," said the RTI reply by the food safety officer of Gurgaon.
A separate
RTI reply has brought to light the fact that the district pollution control
department of Gurgaon has not taken any action or issued any notice to a single
water supplier for not maintaining the quality of drinking water in the last
five years.
To make it
worse, no new permission or licence has been granted to process, operate and
fill bottled drinking water in the past five years, the district pollution
control board said in its reply to Aseem Takyar, an activist.
"When
the pipeline water fails to meet the drinking water requirements of the city
dwellers especially in the commercial and industrial areas, people have no
choice but to rely on packaged drinking water. But, the authorities have not
collected any sample in the past three years barring two. This clearly shows
how unsafe the drinking water could be," Takyar said.
In
residential colonies, people tend to use the piped water but only after
treating it through RO (reverse osmosis) technology.
"In DLF
areas, most people use the water supplied by HUDA but it is treated by the RO
system installed in most houses as people are not sure about the quality and in
the offices, bottled water is used," said Sudhir Kapoor, secretary general
of DLF City RWA, Gurgaon. No one from the food safety office could be
contacted, despite repeated attempts.
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