PHED to restructure its labs to supply quality water in Raj

Jaipur: To ensure ‘quality’ water at the doorstep of all residents in Rajasthan, the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) is all set to construct a modern State Laboratory Building here. The department has also planned to set up one laboratory in all the blocks across the state.
“We would be constructing the State Laboratory Building in Jaipur. Instead of the present system of one laboratory in each district, we are going to construct block level laboratories in 250 blocks across the state. The government has already sanctioned Rs 5.36 crore for the purpose,” said a senior PHED official.
Once this entire network of State Laboratory Building and the 250 block level labs are in place, PHED can test no less than 7.50 lakh of water samples every year.
“Sampling and sample testing is very important. Especially for Rajasthan where you have multiple sources of surface and groundwater. With the Jal Jeevan Mission on in full progress and a few other drinking water supply projects of the state government had already been sanctioned, PHED needs an augmentation for sample testing as well. This network would help us to provide safe drinking water to a great extent,” the official added.
There had been in a few stray incidents in the recent past where residents had to suffer owing to poor quality of drinking water. Like in September, a few localities in Jaipur received yellowish-brownish water from pipelines. Again, in October when a student in Kota was detected with hepatitis B test revealed that the ground water the student was consuming was contaminated with viruses.
“Keeping in mind, the nature of testing we would do in this lab, we have decided to procure expensive machines like gas chromatograph, mass spectroscope and mass spectroscope. It will help in identifying around 15 types of pesticides in water. Other equipment like UV-spectrometer, ion meter, conductivity meter etc will be procured for the district level labs,” added an official.
Besides government chemists, the state government has decided to outsource bacteriologist, chemical assistant, sampling assistant, lab attendants and data entry operator for lab at state level and for labs at the district level.