Why is drinking water important?

Water is extremely crucial for the proper functioning of the human body. Infact, about
60 percent of the human body is made up of water while blood consists of 90 percent
water. Water lubricates the joints, forms an integral part of saliva and mucus and
most importantly carries oxygen to different parts of the body through the blood. It
also provides a cushion for the brain, spinal cord and other sensitive tissues; keeps
the skin healthy; regulates body temperature; helps in digestion; flushes out waste
and maintains functioning of the kidneys; helps maintain blood pressure and
dissolves vital minerals and nutrients in the body.

What are the sources of drinking water?

Freshwater i.e. water available for drinking is a rare and valuable resource!
While water covers two thirds of the earth's surface, most of it is salty and not
suitable for drinking. Only 2.7 percent of the available water on earth is freshwater
and only 1 percent of the available freshwater can be accessed for use from rivers,
lakes and groundwater.

What is potable drinking water?

Although we need to drink a good amount of water to stay healthy, this drinking
water needs to be potable i.e. suitable for human consumption. It has to
be drinkable and safe.

Drinkable water should appear clear to the naked eye and be free of unpleasant
odours, tastes and colours and be of optimum temperature. In addition to this, it has
to be safe and free from toxins, carcinogens, pathogenic micro-organisms and any
other factors causing health hazards.

The World Health Organisation (2017) defines safe drinking water as water that does
not present any risk to health when consumed over a period of time, including
different sensitivities that may occur between life stages.

Safe water is essential for all domestic uses that include drinking, food preparation
and personal hygiene. Safe water is not necessarily pure, it can have some
impurities like traces of salts such as magnesium, calcium, carbonates, bicarbonates
etc.

A 'safely managed drinking water service" is "one located on premises, available

when needed and free from contamination". According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint
Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply Sanitation and Hygiene, “safe
drinking water” is defined as water from an “improved water source,” which includes
household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected
springs and rainwater collections. According to the same organisation, “access to
safe drinking water” is defined as the availability of at least 20 l per person per
day from an “improved” source within 1 km of the user’s dwelling.

What are the sources of drinking water in India?

Drinking water in India is mostly derived from groundwater that is pumped via
handpumps from borewells, tubewells, dugwells, and surface water sources like
rivers, streams, ponds and lakes.

Groundwater, an importance source of drinking water (Image Source: India Water Portal)
The National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO) data - 76th round provides an
overview of the various sources of drinking water available in urban and rural
India. The data shows that groundwater is the most reliable source of drinking
water for nearly 43 percent of the rural population in the country.

How is drinking water accessed in India?

Access to water continues to be a challenge in India. The NSSO data shows

that only one in every five households have access to piped water connections in
the country. Rural areas continue to lag behind in terms of access to piped water as
compared to urban.

Around 58.3 percent of households still rely on hand pumps, tube wells, public taps,
piped water from neighbour, protected or unprotected wells, and private or public
taps for their water.

As high as 48.6 percent rural households and 28 percent urban households have to
survive without access to an improved source (devoid of contamination/safe) of
drinking water throughout the year. Also, 11.3 percent households do not
get sufficient drinking water from their primary sources throughout the year.

The recently released NFHS-5 (2019-2020) data also shows that while access to
drinking water from improved sources has increased in the 22 states surveyed as
compared to NFHS (2015-2016) , rural areas still continue to lag behind as
compared to urban in terms of access to safe drinking water.

How does drinking water become unsafe?

Water sources can get polluted because of a range of harmful contaminants. The
common contaminants occurring in drinking water can be classified into:

• Inorganic contaminants: include metals such as fluoride, arsenic, lead,

copper, chromium, mercury, antimony, cyanide that can get into drinking
water (surface as well as groundwater) from natural sources, industrial
processes, as well as from plumbing systems.
• Organic contaminants include pesticides, untreated domestic and industrial
wastes etc that can get into rivers, lakes, ponds and even groundwater.
Contamination through organic materials can cause serious health problems
like cancers, hormonal disruptions, and nervous system disorders.
• Biological contaminants include the presence of living organisms, such as
algae, bacteria, protozoa or viruses in the water. Each of these can lead to a
range of health problems among humans.
• Radiological contaminants include radioactive materials that are found
naturally in the soil or rocks or generated through industrial wastes that can
 get mixed with drinking water (surface water as well as groundwater) at the
source.

Know more on conventional and emerging contaminants in drinking water here

Is drinking water in India safe?

Water in India is extremely polluted and unsafe. Access to treated piped water
continues to be inadequate for the majority of the population in India. Water from
major sources like tube wells and hand pumps is also found to be unsafe as they are
known to be carriers of waterborne diseases. Even where piped water is available,
its quality continues to be questionable.

A large proportion of people do not have access to water within the house,
increasing the chances of infections. Surface water sources too are highly
contaminated in India. Poor sewage disposal mechanisms lead to most of the
untreated sewage being drained into rivers and lakes that serve as reservoirs of
microbial contamination. Poor access to safe water sources and toilets and open
defecation and poor WASH practices lead to high instances of waterborne
diseases in the country.

Release of untreated industrial and pharmaceutical wastes into the surface water
sources has led to dangerous levels of organic and inorganic pollutants into the
surface water bodies in India, making it unfit for consumption.

Groundwater resources in the country have also been found to be highly polluted
due to presence of fluoride, arsenic, nitrates, iron, heavy metals as well as due to
leaching of harmful pesticide and fertiliser residues. Toxins from untreated industrial
wastes and landfills as well as bacterial contaminants from the surface soil and water
sources can also contaminate groundwater.

What are the health impacts of contaminated drinking water?

Inorganic pollutants in water can be extremely harmful and lead to a range of chronic
and fatal health problems ranging from poisoning to organ damage and cancers. For
example, high levels of arsenic, lead, asbestos, cyanide, copper etc in water can be
extremely harmful to health and can lead to problems like dental and skeletal
fluorosis in case of excessive levels of fluoride, arsenicosis due to high levels of
arsenic and endocrine disruptions and neurological damage due to presence of
excessive amounts of mercury.

Organic and radiological contaminants can also lead to a range of dangerous health
impacts on the body such as cancers, liver and kidney damage, reproductive and
endocrine disorders, birth defects etc.

Biological contamination of water due to viruses, bacteria and protozoa can lead to a
range of waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentry, cholera, typhoid,
hepatitis that can prove fatal if not treated in time.

What are the health impacts of contaminated drinking water in India?

 Waterborne diseases are rampant in India due to high levels of biological
contamination of water. Annually about 37.7 million Indians are affected by
waterborne diseases, 1.5 million children die of diarrhoea and 73 million working
days are lost leading to an economic burden of $600 million a year.

Waterborne diseases such as cholera, acute diarrhoeal diseases, typhoid and viral
hepatitis have caused 10,738 deaths, over the last five years since 2017. Of this,
acute diarrhoeal diseases have caused maximum deaths followed by viral hepatitis,
typhoid and cholera.

Water (sourced from groundwater) contamination due to fluoride, arsenic, iron,

manganese, uranium and radon is high in selected states in India. Central
Groundwater Board (2014) data reveals that as high as 66 million people are
drinking water with fluoride levels beyond permissible limits in India leading to dental
and skeletal fluorosis. Contamination of drinking water with arsenic is rampant in the
states of West Bengal and Bihar besides Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and
Karnaka leading to arsenic poisoning and cancers.

How is safety of drinking water measured?

Access to affordable, safe drinking water is critical for health and development.
There are basic quality standards, norms, criteria and indicators that have been
designed to ensure safety of drinking water.

Water quality is based on a set of biological, physical and chemical variables, which
are closely linked to the intended use of water. Drinking water is expected to be free
from harmful pathogens and toxic chemicals.

Water quality criteria are based on the purpose for which water is used and water
quality analysis involves comparing the quality indicators against pre-established
standards that are defined to find out if water is safe for that particular use and if it
needs to be treated before use.

A standard for drinking water quality is thus the reference that will ensure that the
tested water will not pose any threat or harm to human health. There are a number
of standard guidelines for ensuring quality of drinking water such as those by
the World Health Organisation, Commission for European Union, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Canada etc .

Why is it important to measure water quality?

How is drinking water safety measured in India?

India follows the drinking water quality standards adopted by the Bureau of Indian
Standards specifications for potable water (IS -10500: 2012). Click here to read
more details.

How is water quality checked?

Drinking water quality is checked against the standards mentioned above by
following certain guidelines or protocols for water quality monitoring.

Where can you get water quality checked in India?

Residents of a village testing their water (Image Source: Arghyam)

Water gets tested in accredited water quality testing laboratories in India. There
continues to be a shortage of standard water quality testing laboratories in the
country. The testing standards are also inadequate. For example, around 2,233
drinking water testing laboratories exist in the country of which only 54 are
accredited by the National Acrreditation Board for Testing and Calibration
Laboratories (NABL). Of these, 19 are state laboratories while 35 are district
laboratories.

Taking into consideration this shortage of water quality testing laboratories in the
country, the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), has directed the
states to open up water testing laboratories to the public. One of the mandatory
guidelines under the Har Ghar Nal Se Jal scheme is that states will have to establish
water testing laboratories at all levels — state, districts and blocks.

The DDWS now also plans to help States and Union Territories (UTs) in setting up,
upgrading and improving the functioning of drinking water quality testing laboratories
by providing technical and financial support under the Jal Jeevan Mission.

Who ensures access to safe drinking water in the country?

Ensuring safe water supply and sanitation is a state responsibility under the Indian
Constitution. The state-level agency is in charge of planning and investment, while
the local government (Urban Local Bodies) take care of the operation and
maintenance. In recent years, the private sector has also started playing a role in
operation and maintainence of urban water systems on behalf of ULBs.

There are about a 100,000 rural water supply systems in India. In some states,
responsibility for service provision is in the process of being partially transferred from
State Water Boards and district governments to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) at
the block or village level.

At present, states plan, design and execute water supply schemes through their
State Departments (of Public Health Engineering or Rural Development Engineering)
or State Water Boards.

How is drinking water treated?

The suitability of technology for treating drinking water depends on the nature and
extent of contamination, infrastructure available such as manpower, availability of
chemicals etc, affordability and acceptability among the populations using them.
Some of the common water purification methods that are used for treating water
include:
• Sedimentation or settling
• Boiling/distillation
• Chemical treatment (precipitation/coagulation/adsorbents)
• Disinfection and filtration