Picture by Ashwinee Pati
Bhubaneswar: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday inaugurated the Central Water and Wastewater Testing Laboratory at Palasuni to ensure supply of safe drinking water to city households.
The public health engineering organisation (Pheo), in collaboration with Delhi-based Spectro Analytical Labs Limited, has developed the modern testing laboratory. Both the agencies had entered into an agreement in December last year to develop the project. The lab is meant to check the quality of the drinking water before it is supplied to households.
Pheo superintending engineer Chitta Ranjan Jena said the laboratory was equipped with high-end equipment and technology. "Our private partner will collect and test water samples following every norm," said Jena.
Besides, the chief minister also inaugurated eight other divisional water testing laboratories through videoconferencing from Cuttack. The divisional laboratories have been set up in Bhubaneswar, Berhampur, Cuttack, Puri, Balasore, Baripada, Rourkela and Sambalpur.
The new facilities have increased the Pheo's capacity of testing water. Earlier, there were six water treatment plants in the city, but none of the plants were equipped with a laboratory. The water sourced from the Daya, Kuakhai and the Mahanadi rivers is being treated and released for supply after manual quality testing.
"We had a laboratory at Naraj, but that was not equipped well enough to trace high levels of contamination. In 2015, we had automated the facilities at Palasuni, but now its capacity to treat and test the water has been doubled with addition of the new equipment," said a Pheo official.
The state government had mooted the plan of setting high-end water testing laboratories following the outbreak of water-borne diseases, such as hepatitis, in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
"The hepatitis outbreak triggered panic among the people. The water supplied by the Pheo was blamed for the disease. It is the duty of the government to ensure the quality of drinking water before its supply," said Jagamara resident Dinesh Nayak.
