Tapi’s water quality continuously declining

Surat: Every year, Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) spends at least Rs10 crore for supplying potable water to people in the city. However, huge amount of water hyacinth in Tapi River means the civic body has to spend money to remove it, yet the quality of water continues to decline.
In the last two months, SMC’s hydraulic department received more than 50 complaints about poor quality of water from different parts of the city. People said they were getting coloured and stinking water.

Water in Tapi in Surat stretch is of ‘D’ grade quality-barely potable-due to heavy chlorination. But for chlorination, Tapi water would not qualify as drinking water. The major factors responsible for its poor water quality are: lack of flow required for self-purification of the river and increasing biological impurities leading to lack of oxygen content in raw river water.

Professor PN Patel, a member of faculty of Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, said, “Tapi is supposed to be a perennial river, which means continuously flowing. However, regular minimum flow required for environmental self-purification is absent. As a result, the water that is drawn from the river is stagnated water with high biological impurities. The other issue is of sufficient oxygen content. When the water surface is totally covered by vegetation like hyacinth, oxygen content in the river water automatically decreases.”

An officer of SMC’s hydraulic department said, “The civic body spends more than Rs10 crore to clean wild vegetation from Tapi every year.”