Bhubaneswar, Feb. 26: Water tanks of Public Health Engineering Organisation (PHEO) are not being cleaned regularly and this raises questions on the quality of water being supplied.
While PHEO engineers claim that the department has been cleaning the tanks twice a year, records at many of the tanks say that they have not been cleaned since March 2011.
Records at a tank near Khandia Park in Unit-III showed that neither the underground reservoir, nor the elevated storage reservoir have been cleaned since March last year.
An elevated storage reservoir near Anand Bazar, opposite the Regional Institute of Education, shows that while the tank was cleaned twice in 2008 and also in 2009, it was cleaned only once in both 2010 and 2011. No cleaning has been done since May 24, 2011.
Sources said, of the 97 underground reservoirs and 35 elevated storage reservoirs under the three PHEO divisions, many were not cleaned following the cleaning protocol. The rules require a high-powered water jet being sprayed on the inside walls of the tanks, followed by chlorination.
Superintending engineer Chittaranjan Jena said: “We are regularly cleaning all tanks under PHEO in the city. It could be that all the cleaning operations are not recorded on the respective charts, but the cleaning operations are never missed. We are also chlorinating the water at the treatment plants and so, there is no chance of any slimy layer forming on the tank beds.”
However, grassroots-level staff of PHEO at one of the elevated storage reservoirs in the city admitted that whenever there is cleaning, sand particles and slimy material is always found and the cleaning contractors take an entire day to carry out the operation. “Not all the tanks (generally underground reservoirs) have a water supply source from water treatment plants. So, if they have to pump up water from underground, sand particles are bound to be deposited in the tank they should be regularly cleaned,” said a staff.
Water expert Bikas Pati said: “Though the treated water comes though filters, it has a particular lifespan and when stored inside a tank, the vacuum helps avoid bacterial contamination. The cleaning protocol has to be strictly followed. If the authorities are claiming that they are cleaning the tanks but could not put the data on the display board, then it could be compared to a drug manufacturing company’s claim of forgetting the batch number on the medicine which has already expired.”
Sources at the PHED quality control laboratory admitted that though the laboratory had facilities to detect bacterial contamination, no tests were done on a day-to-basis to test samples from all the reservoirs in the city.
Asish, a resident of Baramunda, said: “Once I found the leg of a frog in the tap water and took to the nearest PHEO office. But they could not explain how it got there.”
A PHEO engineer said: “Despite the treatment process, sometimes, small fishes could get in the supply pipeline. But, this chance is 0.01 per cent and could be treated as the rarest of the rare cases. However, if this recurs, then it could be considered a serious problem.”
