Govt steps in to clean up your drinking water…….Sujit Mahamulkar and Sayli Udas-Mankikar
A day after Hindustan Times reported that contamination of drinking water in Mumbai had doubled in the last year, Health Ministry Suresh Shetty called an emergency meeting of government and civic body officials to discuss the matter even as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) decided to draw up an action plan to bring down contamination levels.
HT had, on Friday, reported how the BMC’s Environment Status report showed impurity levels had gone up to 26% this year from 13% in 2008-9. Contaminated water can cause gastroenteritis, typhoid and jaundice.
“After reading the report, I took a review meeting. The BMC is working on a plan to check the situation,” Shetty said. He said the issue would be taken up at a meeting of the cabinet sub-committee set up to examine environmental issues.
Municipal Commissioner Swadheen Kshatriya said additional commissioner Anil Diggikar had been asked to formulate the plan to clean up the water. “It will be our priority,” he said.
Civic officials had, on Thursday, blamed the century-old pipelines running parallel to sewage lines, for the problem.
Guardian Minister for suburban Mumbai Naseem Khan said the government would ask the BMC to speed up work on replacing old pipelines.