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| Threat of water borne diseases hovers over State | | Only 35% people get filtered water | | Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Mar 8 : Threat of water borne diseases hovers over the state as only 35 percent get water from treated sources in the state.
According to the official data, around 65 percent population in Jammu and Kashmir having access to tap water of which 34.7 percent get water from treated sources and 29.2 percent from untreated sources.
6.5 percent people use well water of which 1.9 percent are uncovered wells and 4.7 are uncovered wells, sources quoting official figures.
The rest of the population gets unfiltered water from springs, lakes, canals and other water bodies.
The J&K is far behind than neighboring states like Himachal Pradesh where 89.5 people have access to tap water of which 83.9 get from treated sources and 5.6 percent from untreated sources. Experts believe that water borne is common in JK due to varied factors.
Medical experts are of the opinion that the percentage of people in J&K suffering from various abdominal disorders, including liver and kidney ailments are the result of consumption of untreated water. "Most of water borne disease are common in the state. there could be controlled only when we get water from treated sources," a doctor at SMHS hospital Srinagar said. There has been sharp increase in water borne diseases for the past several years which according to health experts in their reports had mentioned that these diseases had emerged due to supplying of "contamination and unfiltered" water to the people.
According to the guidelines, it is mandatory that all the drinking water sources have to be tested once in a year for chemical contamination and twice for bacteriological contamination. Besides proper filtration of water has to be a continuous process.
However, people complain that unfiltered and muddy tap water was being supplied to them without any filtration being done. In J&K thousands of water supply schemes were taken up for execution over the years, majority of them have not been completed thus forcing people to consume water from the contaminated sources.
"These schemes could not be completed due to non-availability of funds," an official of public health engineering department said.
In some areas, water is being supplied through water tanks while in some areas people fetch water from streams and rivers without being filtered.
While there are around 100 water testing laboratories, sources said PHE department has failed to monitor the water quality with "unfiltered and muddy" tap water being supplied to the people. |
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