Water purification plants in bad shape

People are taken for ride

Adilabad: Water purification plants were set up in important towns like Mancherial, Nirmal, Adilabad, Kagaznagar and Asifabad in the district. But most of them are not in a good condition to supply purified water. The machinery installed in them is of very poor quality.

In order to set up a plant to purify the water, permission has to be taken from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) based in Hyderabad. But it was not obtained even for a single water plant. Besides, each water plant should be installed in a Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) building but this was not followed.

Moreover, there was neither a microbiologist nor a laboratory at the place where these plants were set up to test the quality of water. Furthermore, permissions have to be renewed for the water plant every six months but they were not taken even after years. It is surprising as to how the owners of the water plants were able to establish them violating all rules and regulations.

As the people of the district firmly believe that drinking purified water is healthy, the owners of these water plants were selling water exploiting their weaknesses and making heavy profits. One of the locals, Anjaneyulu, said that as more and more people were demanding purified water for drinking, the owners of the plants were making huge profits running into crores of rupees by selling approximately three lakh litres of water every day, taking advantage of summer.

Besides, they were also collecting Rs 5 on each water can, he added. He wondered as to how the contents of the water could be examined without the help of a microbiologist. He said that people in the district were supplied highly chlorinated water and their bones were affected.

Similarly, water packets were sold without printing expiry dates on them. Another customer Mallaiah alleged that though the owners of the water plants were violating rules and regulations with impunity, no action was being taken against them as they pay huge amounts of bribes to the officials concerned.

He said that the RDOs and the municipal commissioners have the power to take action against such corrupt owners of water plants but they were reluctant to take any action. He said that lizards, cockroaches and dirt was found in some water plants and demanded stringent action against the officials and owners of the plants.

Speaking to The Hans India, here on Sunday, Revenue Divisional Officer Shivalingaiah said he did not receive any complaints against the owners of the water plants till now and if such complaints were made, stringent action would be definitely taken against the corrupt officials and owners of the plants.

By Anjaiah