Bacteria count high in Parwanoo water: Report

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, February 24

The water samples of Parwanoo town have been found to have a high level of coliform and suspended solids as per the findings of a lab report of the State Pollution Control Board.

Though the total coliform count is supposed to be about 0 to 2, it was found to be as high as 1,600 most probable number (mpn)/100 ml. The quantum of suspended solids was also found to be on the higher side and since the water samples were drawn from the final outlet of the treatment plant at Kamli, it has put a question mark over the quality of water being supplied by the Himachal Pradesh Housing and Urban Development Authority to the town.

The water is lifted from the Kaushalya river and further cleaned by HIMUDA staff. Though the HIMUDA staff had undertaken cleansing of the supply tanks a few days ago in view of jaundice scare in Solan, the report has put a question mark over the quality of water.

It was worth mentioning that officials of the Haryana Government had recently raised the issue of untreated sewage from Parwanoo town contaminating their water supply schemes at Pinjore.

It was learnt that sewage from Sectors 5 and 6 was dumped into the Kaushalya river while sewage from Sectors 1, 2 and 4, Taksal village and Dagger in Parwanoo was disposed of into the Sukhna Nulla. The Sukhna Nullah confluences into the Ghaggar near Surajpur opposite the Kaushlaya dam which supplies drinking water to Haryana.

An Executive Engineer of HIMUDA, when quizzed, said he had yet to see this latest report and added that requisite measures as suggested by board officials would be put in place to ensure that quality water was supplied to the town.

He said earlier lab reports received from the Composite Testing Lab at Kandaghat had not found any contamination in the water and they had recently cleansed all the tanks and related cleansing system.

Experts, however, opined that the high count of coliform in water was an indication of drinking water being contaminated with sewage and it could cause diarrhoea and related ailments.