Why in news?
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has prepared a draft standard for the supply system of piped drinking water.
What is the draft?
- The draft is labelled as ‘Drinking water supply quality management system - requirements for piped drinking water supply service’.
- It has been prepared by the BIS’ Public Drinking Water Supply Services Sectional Committee.
- It has been developed keeping in view the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission.
- [Jal Jeevan Mission wants to provide safe and adequate drinking water to all rural households by 2024 through tap connections.]
What is the focus of the draft?
- The draft outlines the process of water supply, from raw water sources to household taps.
- The standard is expected to make the process of piped water supply more uniform, especially in rural and underdeveloped areas of the country.
- At present, the standard is not expected to be made mandatory.
- After the draft is notified, states or water utilities planning to implement the standard can approach BIS for a license.
What does the draft say?
- It outlines the requirements for a water supplier or utility.
- These requirements are regarding how they should establish, operate, maintain and improve their piped drinking water supply service.
- The process begins with identification of a water source.
- The source can either be groundwater or surface water sources such as rivers, streams or reservoirs.
- It states that after treating, the drinking water should conform to the BIS’ Indian Standard (IS) 10500.
- [IS 10500 outlines the acceptable limit of various substances in drinking water, like heavy metals such as arsenic.
- It also sets the limits on parameters like the pH value of water, its turbidity, the total dissolved solids in it, and the colour and odour.]
- The draft standard also contains guidelines for top management of the water utility.
- These guidelines are in terms of accountability and customer focus, establishing a quality policy for their service, monitoring the quality of water released to people, and conducting a water audit.
What does the draft say about the water supply process?
- Source identification - The supply system as outlined in the draft should begin with the identification of a raw water source.
- Water should then be pumped into the treatment plant and treated to achieve the acceptable drinking standards.
- After the water is released from the plant, there should be,
- Reservoirs in the distribution system for storage of this water, and
- Disinfection facilities to get rid of contamination at any stage of distribution.
- Accessories - The draft says that, if necessary, the pumping stations could be provided with accessories shall be installed throughout the distribution system.
- These accessories shall be used as control devices and for water audit.
- Automation - The draft reads that the emphasis should be given to operate the systems on automation mode.
- DMA - The document also states that the concept of district metering area (DMA) should be adopted where possible.
- DMA would control the leakages in the water network, which is divided into a number of sectors.
- Here, flow meters are installed to detect leaks.
- Water audit - The water supplier/utility may provide bulk water meters in the water distribution system to ensure water audit.
- However, the provisions should be made for domestic meters also.
- It shall ensure that the consumers do not have direct access to the meters to avoid possible tampering of the meters.
- It reads that the provision should be made to have automatic meters at household level which shall support in water audit.
- Quality assurance - The draft mentions that water should be sampled at the treatment plant every four hours against quality parameters.
- In the distribution system, the sampling should be done every 8 hours at the water reservoirs.
- Random sampling should also be done at household levels.
What’s there in the draft in addition to the water supply process?
- It states that a water audit should be conducted on a quarterly basis.
- [Water audit is a calculation of the amount of water put into distribution against the amount that is consumed.]
- It says that effort should be made by the water agency to bring down the water loss up to 15% of the total water supplied in the system.
- The water utilities are required to conduct surveys among consumers and obtain feedback on their service as per the draft.
Source: The Indian Express
