Best in the business: The Jusco water plant. File picture

Jamshedpur, Aug. 5: The residents of Jamshedpur had always suspected it, but now it is official: the city gets the best drinking water in the country.

Companies manufacturing water purifiers and selling bottled water should go elsewhere for business. The residents of Jamshedpur who consume water supplied by Jamshedpur Utilities Services Company (Jusco) get to drink quality certified water right from their taps.

The town laboratory of Jusco’s water management department, which monitors and conducts surveillance of process and drinking water quality at the consumers’ taps across Jamshedpur, has been accredited ISO/IEC 17025: 2005 certification.

The laboratory, which had applied for accreditation to the National Accreditation Boarding for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, recently got the certificate.

Jusco is the only public utility company to have applied for the certification.

The other agencies providing drinking water get their sample tested in government laboratories. The head of Jusco corporate communication Rajesh Rajan said the company got NABL accreditation this month.

“In keeping with our promise to provide best quality potable water to the consumers, we had applied for the accreditation from the National Accreditation Boarding for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. After a through investigation of our water processing system and our plants, followed by an assessment at the supply end, the auditors recommended the certification in favour of Jusco. We are happy to announce that with this Jusco became the first utility company in India with an NABL accreditation for its laboratory,” said Rajan.

He claimed that even before getting the certificate, the company provided the best quality of water round the clock from taps.

“Now we can say that we are supplying certified quality water to our consumers,” added Rajan.

Sources in Jusco said now consumers could, without any hesitation, drink water directly from taps. There is no need to use any kind of water purifier if the water is supplied by Jusco, they said.

“Now we have more than 43,000 domestic, 250 commercial and 22 industrial consumers. If one wants to test the quality of water, he can take a random sample and get it tested at any laboratory. The water supplied at each place meets the specified norms,” said a Jusco official.

He also said in the days to come the way Jusco is expanding its network and area of distribution there would be no need for water purifiers in homes across Jamshedpur and its adjoining areas.