The Hindu Business Line : Water, water — and may be a drop to drink

The Centre recently arranged for exhibitions in the four major metros as a pre-qualifying round for a Rs 200-crore plan to install stand-alone water purification systems capable of providing 1,000-1,500 litres of safe drinking water a day to 30,000 rural schools ‘throughout the country’, without the use of electricity or ‘any other energy source’.

Economically, efficient water purification is a five stage process. Let the water stand, to allow undissolved material to settle. Filter out what is left. Eliminate bacteria, either by radiation or chlorination, and then remove undissolved solids. This only adds up to four, but the fifth and final stage comes at the end.

There were about 50 stalls in the exhibition held in Chennai. B to C models on display ranged from ‘plain vanilla’ Rs 1,500-1,800 standing-water dependant systems such as Aqua-guard and Hindustan Unilever’s Pureit designed for cost-conscious households to Ion Exchange’s Rs 13,000 Zero B Reverse Osmosis system designed for quality-conscious households. Would these units be able to handle the loads specified for the 30,000 schools? Sure, said the man in charge of the HUL stall, so long as they remembered to change (and pay for) the Rs 300-apiece membrane once a day.

B to B models, fabricated by (inevitably lesser known, but much more rapidly growing) companies included many which, according to their manufacturers, had been in operation for more than a year, providing safe water (cleansed even of dissolved solids) to whole villages, factories and offices.

These units had no particular apprehensions about meeting the Rs 67,000-unit cost limit implicit in the Central Government’s plan. They did, however, have some questions about the credibility of a ‘tender’ which explicitly, and quite unnecessarily, ruled out the use of ‘any’ form of energy.

Water, they said, does not emerge from a well of its own accord, and even the proverbial horse would need to use his tongue if he changes his mind.

Another problem raised was that it is hard to come up with ‘one size fits all’ models for schools ‘all across the country’, because of differences in the quantity and variety of undissolved material, and because dissolved solids range from common salt and fluoride to iron and arsenic.

By far the most interesting stalls at the exhibition was the one set up by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD). Unfortunately, despite this stall’s refreshing focus on ways of testing the purity of ‘purified’ water, it did not have, perhaps could not have had, any easy test(s) to offer. The large number of tubes and reagents were definitely not user-friendly.

It is easy to be cynical. How many of us have ever bothered to test the easily-testable quality of the petrol we buy? Or doubted the purity of that bottle of mineral or aerated water? But, personally, I have no doubts that few school children (or journalists) would pass up a change to dip a piece of paper in a glass of water just to see if it turns pink.

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