RWAs seek water report, threaten to move court

GHAZIABAD: The Federation of Residents' Welfare Associations, Ghaziabad, has sought copies of the chemical and biological reports about chemical contents in the main city water supply tanks and official hand pumps.
The Federation has written an open letter to city municipal commissioner Abdul Samad saying that if the copies are not sent it would be forced to seek recourse to a court of law to obtain the details "if at all the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation did have the water tested at source before supplying it to residents through taps in their homes.If the civic water supply is not regularly being examined for toxic elements, including chromium, arsenic, fluoride and more, the Federation will move the relevant court to have the water supply tested by a reliable source," said Federation chief, Colonel TP Tyagi (retired)
"If this groundwater is being supplied to residents to drink, it requires a considerable infrastructure to remove the toxins from it completely. And, as far as we are aware, this has not been done. And, nothing really can be done about the hand pumps from where thousands of citizens get their drinking water. Even boards indicating the toxicity have not been put up near the hand pumps," Tyagi said.
In the letter, Tyagi said the Federation would soon file a public interest petition if the issues regarding the city's largely toxic water were not looked into right away.
Municipal chief Samad was not reachable. But Ghaziabad municipality health chief Dr Ram Kripal Yadav said, "Water is properly tested before it is allowed to be used for drinking. But, I will further check this out. We will make the tests public."
He did not comment when told about hand pumps gushing out water containing carcinogenic and other dangerous content.