Unauthorised manufacturing units mushroom as consumption goes up by 15%

Areas abutting the city are increasingly dotted with packaged drinking water industrial units. A minimum of 30 plants have come up over the last year in the neighbouring districts. The rising demand for water this summer has also paved the way for the sale of sub-standard quality of water and operation of unauthorised units.

With water crisis slowly taking on alarming proportions, substandard packaged drinking water, without proper labels and ISO certification and quality checks, are more freely available in the market, raising risks of contracting water-borne diseases.

With the Water Board failing to supply adequate safe drinking water, residents are forced to buy water from private companies. But water bottles or pouches of many companies are sold without proper labels or adequate quality checks, officials said.

NEW DELHI, March 19 – The Centre has on Monday claimed comprehensive technical studies were carried out for safety of dams including dams in the North-East. In a Rajya Sabha reply to a question by Biren Baishya, Minister of State for Planning and Earth Sciences, Dr Shwani Kumar said the technical studies are carried out according to the guidelines issued by the Central Water Commission (CWC) for safety inspection of dams.

Urbanisation, influx of pilgrims, fertilizer-intensive farming, and indiscriminate sand-mining have impacted on the water quality of Manimala river, a major source of drinking water in Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts.

A report published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, an international journal devoted to progress in the use of monitoring data in assessing environmental risks to man and environment, highlights the deterioration in water quality caused by human intervention, especially in the upper reaches of the Manimala river.

The Union ministry of food and consumer affairs proposes to insert a new clause in the fresh discussion note for the Cabinet on allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail. The Cabinet had decided to allow 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail in November, but had put the move in abeyance, owing to political opposition.

Ground water in areas up to three km radius around garbage disposal sites of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is highly alkaline and unfit for human use. According to a joint research study by the city-based National Geophy-sical Research Institute and the dep artment of applied geochemistry, Osmania University, the pH of ground water in localities around the three GHMC garbage dump yards at Jawaharnagar, Dundigal and Autonagar varies from 5.1 to 8.1. As many as 60 water samples from around these sites were analysed for water purity and chemical contamination.

KOCHI: One of the major reasons for the contamination of potable drinking water is the presence of E-Coli, a bacterium found in human and animal waste. Dr Aisha S, a doctor in the Health Department said: “There have been a few cases of water contamination in the past caused by E-Coli in many hospitals. Most of them might not be severe but nonetheless they are harmful.”

Delhi is among 30 important cities in the country that fall into high-risk seismic zone, while Srinagar is among places at very high risk of earthquakes, the government said on Wednesday. Minister of state for home affairs Mullappally Ramachandran said this in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha. Delhi, Amritsar and Chandigarh fall under zone IV (high risk), Srinagar comes under zone V (very high risk), he said.

SHILLONG: The State Government has decided to be more vigilant on the use of plastic bags to safeguard the greenery of the hilly state.
Urban Affairs minister, Ampareen Lyngdoh on Tuesday convened a meeting with officials of the Shillong Municipal Board, Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board, district administration and police officers and decided to be more vigilant in this regard from October 2.

Panic gripped the villagers of Jayrampur under Bhograi block following detection of high fluoride content in drinking water.

The amount of fluoride in the water samples collected from the tube-wells in the area was as high as 5.8 mg per litre against the maximum permissible limit of 1.5 mg, according to a test conducted by the Institute of Mineral Material Testing Centre (IMMTC) at Bhubaneswar.

Sitansu Mishra (46) of Jayrampur got the water of his tube-well tested by the IMMTC on the advice of doctors of a Bhubaneswar- based private hospital.