Pakistan - Drinking contaminated water

One good thing the Ministry of Science and Technology has done is to assign the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) responsibility for quarterly monitoring of bottled/mineral water brands, and publicize the results too. Although the PCRWR's latest report - based on examination of water samples of 76 brands collected from the open markets in Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Quetta, Tando Jam and Karachi - presents harrowing findings, at least people can know and avoid what they are getting in the name of safety. Ten of the companies with 13 percent market share were found to be selling water unsafe for human consumption. Four contained high arsenic level, ranging from 27 to 57 pbb against Pakistan Standards Quality Control Authority's permissible standard of 10 pbb. Two brands had microbiological contamination and the remainder four contained high levels of TDS (total dissolved solids) in the form of inorganic salts, such as sodium and potassium. 

What this water does to consumers has been explained by Director General of the National Water Quality Laboratory in a statement released in conjunction with the PCRWR report. Excessive arsenic level in water, said the DG, can cause various skin diseases, diabetes, kidney ailments, birth defects, black foot disease and different types of cancer. And microbiological contamination may cause cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis, and typhoid among other ailments. As it is, more and more people are taking to bottled water because water-borne diseases are rampant in this country. Hospitals routinely require patients to use bottled water, which for the unsuspecting consumers can aggravate a serious health problem. The less educated and hence less informed fall an easy prey to the greed of deceitful purveyors of contaminated water. It is worthwhile to note that almost all the ten brands named by PCRWR for unacceptable quality are little known and hence are generally avoided by quality conscious big city people. 

The PCRWR report also shed light on the general conditions, saying the quality of piped water is deteriorating because of biological contamination from human waste, chemical pollutants discharged by industries, and also because water pipes are usually laid close to sewage lines or open drains. Whilst it is a matter of satisfaction that PCRWR is performing well its task of testing water for its properties and equally important, publicising its findings too, sadly missing is follow-up action. Presumably, the offending companies have been in the market for quite a while. The previous mandatory quarterly report should have disclosed the same findings. This time the result could be different had the concerned authorities taken due notice. Hopefully, the present report will lead to effective legal action against the offending companies; and something will also be done to ensure the safety of piped water.