Bhopal, Apr 2: Maps based on quality of water are being prepared under Rapid Quality Assessment Programme by Public Health Engineering Department. Meanwhile, the department has tested at its laboratory more than 6500 specimen from the water sources of all the districts.

The Public Health Engineering Department has implemented the Rapid Water Quality Assessment Programme with the co-operation of UNICEF under which special testing of water sources in some selected villages was done in all the districts.

On the basis of inspection and verification, information was collected as to which are the pollutants near the water sources and the possible causes of pollution. These tests were undertaken as per the norms laid down by Water Safety Plan of World Health Organisations. Work of overall quality assessment has been undertaken linking this information to quality of water.

Under this programme, spot tests were conducted at the water sources through Field Testing Kits by the officers and employees of Regional Research Laboratory, Government of India, State Public Health Engineering Department and UNICEF. Some of these specimen were subjected to further chemical and fossil tests at the district laboratories to find out whether they had any excessive contents of fluoride, nitrate, iron etc.

The marking of these water sources was made through Global Positioning System (GPS) and water level was also measured through the same technique.

In all, 6596 water sources were tested under this programme in 313 development blocks of all the 48 districts. Now their maps are being prepared on the basis of GPS and assessment and evaluation of the collected specimens are being done. In the light of results of these tests and assessment, it would be possible to ensure quality at other water sources also by undertaking necessary steps.