Water pollution in India facts, drinking water pollution in India

The main causes of ground and river water pollution in India is the dumping of raw untreated sewage and the discharge of Industrial waste water without any treatment. Now with the Government of India pro-actively taking steps to prevent water pollution in India, we may soon see some improvement in the water pollution in India. The Swachh Bharat scheme of the Indian Government seeks to provide toilet facilities to the masses in India. If successful, there will be a drastic improvement in the water quality of Indian rivers and ground water.

Water we get in our tap water through pipes always has some contaminants and impurities. Some of these water contaminant impurities in the water will cause us no harm, but some water impurities could be bad for us humans. International bodies like WHO, the World Health Organisation and Government Agencies like BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) and EPA (The Environmental Protection Agency of USA) issues the safe water guidelines and sets Maximum Contaminant Levels or MCL of impurities that can be present in drinking water. Our page on Water Standards has details of it

All the impurities in water can be removed with modern water purification technologies. It is now possible to get pure drinking water, as good as or even better than bottled water, from any water source, tap water or well water, or sea water by using appropriate technologies like RO or Reverse Osmosis membrane purification. Even Sewage water is now being converted into drinking water in some advanced countries like Singapore.

Quality of water supply in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and other cities in India

It will not surprise many in India that pipe water supply in most cities in India, or for that matter in any part of India, tap water is not safe to drink straight out of the tap. Just to give you some examples, this is what the Wall Street Journal, one of the world’s most respected News Paper, says about the quality of water in Delhi ….."Given that India’s capital has a stomach illness named after it (DELHI BELLY), it’s not surprising that residents are suspicious of their water. News reports often confirm those fears. Last year, for example, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi conducted its own water tests and found many of the tap water samples it collected were contaminated with sewage water” ……More.

Another famous city in India, world famous as the IT capital of the world, Bangalore has terrible problems with its water supply. To quote from a report about the quality of water in Bangalore by The Society for Environment and Development (SEDINDIA), a non-government, nonprofit, consultancy and research organization ...."Assessment of drinking water quality was carried out at Bangalore city and samples were collected from different parts of Bangalore ....... The Results showed that 26% of the samples exceeded with permissible limits for BOD. ...... Drinking water contaminated by human or animal waste and also due to breakage of pipelines” .....More

Things are rapidly improving in India. Improvement of the the quality of water supplies in India is a top priority on the agenda of the new Indian Government. So for sure the water supply quality in India will improve, but until such time it is wise to be careful about your drinking water and invest in the best possible home water purifier you can afford.

Recycling sewage water for potable water use

At one time Singapore depended on Malaysia for their fresh water. Most of Singapore's fresh water was piped down from Malaysia. The rulers of Singapore decided some time ago that this was not an ideal situation. Water from Malaysia could be cut off at any time, for reasons which could be political or just by mechanical failures. Singapore decided that they must become independent for their fresh water supplies.

Rain harvesting was carried with high priority but was not sufficient to cover their requirement. They then started to build huge sea water desalination plants, but soon discovered that this was an expensive option, because to de-salt sea water requires a lot of electricity. So they looked for alternative solutions.

There was plenty of sewage water which was being used for agriculture or wasted. On studying the possibility of recycling and reusing their sewage water, they discovered that it could be recycled and made into very good quality drinking water at a fraction of the cost of trying to desalinate sea water. The Government took the bold decision to reuse their sewage water as fresh water supply by recycling waste water using advanced technologies. They built the most modern water recycling facilities which used water from the discharge of their conventional municipal sewage water treatment plants. The recycling facilities used a dual membrane process, first the treated sewage effluent (TSE) water passed through Microfiltration membranes and then through Reverse Osmosis membranes and finally through very high doses of UV rays. The purified recycled sewage water was tested in the leading water testing laboratories of the world and it was found to be as good, if not better than the piped water of many modern cities of the world.

During the International Desalination Association or IDA World Congress on Desalination and Water Reuse in Singapore in September 2005, this author, being an IDA member, attended as a delegate. During this world conference, we delegates were each handed a bottled mineral water called 'NEWater'. The Singapore Minister of Water inaugurating the IDA World Congress introduced Bottled 'NEWater' as being made from recycled Singapore Sewage Water and invited us delegates to have a drink from it. We delegates were of course a bit averse to drinking it, but the Singapore Minister of Water showed us the way and opened a bottle of NEWater and drank from it to the applause of all us delegates present there! ............ For More about NEWater

Recycled sewage treated water is being used as drinking water even in the USA, where there is water shortage in some parts of States like California. Going forward water will be the most essential commodity for growing human populations, even more important than Oil. Very soon India will also have to follow the example of Singapore in some of its cities where there is constant shortage of clean water. The government of India will have to invest heavily in Sewage treatment plants to purify all the dirty water that is getting into our rivers like the Ganga.

Best way to buy Water Purifiers in India

The best way to buy Water Purifiers in India is to first look at all models of Water Purifiers available online at the leading online Retailers in India. For example on the online webpage of All Water Purifiers available in India on Amazon.in, you will find the full range of Indian Water Purifiers complete with their best discounted price and full specifications. This is great information, and you can decide on which model of water purifier to buy. With the model of water purifier you want to buy finalised, you can go to local shops to try and find the model of water purifier you have chosen and see if you can get at similar price of that at Amazon.in. In most cases the price from Amazon will be cheaper, because they buy in bulk from the manufacturers direct and they sell huge volumes because they are the world's largest and most trusted online retailer. If you buy from Amazon, they will arrange to have the water purifier installed in your house, usually free of charge.

Warranty and other facilities offered through Amazon are usually better than what you can get from local agents of water purifiers.

All pages in our website www.AchaWater.com

Below are links to all the pages on this website and we hope you will make full use of all the great information about Indian Water Purifiers provided here.