Despite the claims made by the Union Ministry of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) to provide tap water to every household, a state government study found people in only 176 of the 235 urban towns in Rajasthan get potable water. While 48 towns come under partially potable water supply, remaining 11 are dependent on ‘non potable’ water.

The 11 towns under ‘unsafe or non-potable’ water category are actually not covered by the surface water supply and hence are solely dependent on underground or reservoir water availability, a study report-2022-23 of the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) and its Chemistry Lab warned here recently.

The PHED study shows that water taste is not sweet but salty in these 11 towns with high concentrations of nitrate, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Multiparameters. The saving grace is that since water available to these towns doesn’t contain excess fluoride (more than 1.5 ppm), people have no bone related abnormality.

“Long-term use of this kind of unsafe and tasteless water could cause diseases like stone formation, calcium carbonate and magnesium scaling or deposition in the containers, side effects in food preparation and milk, and unknown ailments,” an expert chemist, who was part of the study team, told The Statesman.

“It is true the underground water is free from bacteria, but it has different chemical compositions based on the location and sources of the water table,” the expert said.

Excess nitrate affected towns are Bhiwadi, Khairthal in Alwar, Navalgarh, Surajgarh and Chirawa (Jhunjhunu), whereas Govindgarh in Alwar district is high TDS gripped town, and Nadbai (Bharatpur), Ratan Nagar (Churu), Fatehpur Shekhawati, Ramgarh Shekhawati and Losal (Sikar district) have a multiple parameters problem in ‘non-potable’ water.

As per the standards, the nitrate value varied from 92 to 130 mg/litre, while TDS value varied from 1602 to 2723 and at some listed places it was recorded in between 3780-4060

Additional Chief Engineer of PHED Subodh Agarwal has called a virtual meeting with district officials directing them to prepare an action plan to supply surface water to these towns without much delay.

The PHED officials are rather reluctant to set up ‘defluoridation or RO plant’ as it would be highly costly to set up and maintain further in these towns.

Agarwal also sought a similar study of drinking water quality to be conducted in rural areas of the state.

Contrary to this reality, a JJM poster with the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on it claims that one lakh water connections are being given in the country every day. Of the 18.97 crore homes in the country, 5.16 homes get tap water.