drinking water

Supply of packaged drinking water in several parts of Bengaluru has been affected after the total lockdown that came into effect from Tuesday midnight. There are many sides to the problem. One, packaged water distributors are unable to fetch cans from bottling companies due to the lockdown. Two, distributors are unable to supply cans to residents who place orders through phone calls. Several distributors in the city have stopped answering their phones as the demand for packaged water has soared and they are unable to meet it. The other side of the story is that offices being the biggest customers…

It is 4 pm. A man comes in a bike, parks it near the HOPCOMS shop near Mariyappanapalya Park in Rajajinagar, Bengaluru. He walks towards the water vending machine nearby with a 20 litre water can in hand, pays, fills it and leaves the spot. Just as he is leaving, we ask him what he does with the water. He says he uses it in his panipuri business. He is a street vendor whose business depends on this safe water dispensed by the vending machine, popularly known as water ATM. This water ATM was started in 2015 as a BBMP…

At Casa Ansal apartments on Bannerghata Road, JP Nagar, we got samples of the following drinking water sources tested from a reputed water testing laboratory. Cauvery water as received from BWSSB Water from the open well near A- Block Water from the open well near D- Block Water from borewell near B- block This is what we inferred from the test results: None of the samples meet the Indian standard specifications for drinking water. The Cauvery water sample is the worst of the lot. It contains the highest MPN (Most probable number of Bacteria count) The water from the other…

"The next world war will be over water" - Ismail Serageldin, former Vice President of the World Bank. As with any problem, the proper way to manage water is to adopt a holistic approach along the lines of reduce, reuse and recycle and ensure active participation by both individual residents as well as the Apartment Owners Associations. The Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) guidelines state that the average water consumption per person, in megacities is 150 liters per day (lpd). For an average household of 4 persons, that works out to 600 lpd. Try to figure out…

Suresh lives in the Victorian Avenue apartment block in Indira Nagar. After a day's work in the office, he comes home and cooks his food. Till recently he was using the water from a tap provided in the flat's kitchen for cooking. In February this year he noticed that the rice he cooked used to turn dull yellow in colour. First he thought it was the rice, but changing the rice did not change the colour.I used to boil the water for drinking and there would be a thin white film of something on the surface. When I asked my…