The News Review:

- Water Board gets 200-cr. JNURM funds for storage
- Cape Flats aquifer in pollution threat
- Provision of safe drinking water

Water Board gets 200-cr. JNURM funds for storage
Hindu – Dec 19, 2006
200 crores under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission funds. 130 crores will be spent on construction of 12 new reservoirs in the twin cities, including eight in the old city, and the rest on laying pipelines to take Krishna water to all areas. The new reservoirs of 100 million litres per day (mld) capacity will enable the Board store the huge volume of water, which will be at its disposal on completion of the second phase of the Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project.

Cape Flats aquifer in pollution threat
Independent Online – Dec 19, 2006
It warns while the quality of the groundwater of the Cape Flats aquifer is generally good, it is starting to show “measurable impacts from human activities”. Further, it calls for appropriate aquifer “protection zones” to be put in place. Currently, most of Cape Town’s water supply is obtained from surface water, stored inland in big dams and reservoirs, including those at Theewaterskloof, Voelvlei and Steenbras. After recent water shortages and droughts, hydrologists in the Western Cape have turned their attention to the province’s aquifers as a means of keeping the fast-growing region assured of a reliable and sustainable water supply. Adelana and Xu say their study shows urban development – well known to have a negative impact on groundwater quality – is taking place over many parts of the Cape Flats aquifer. The threats from this are:low-to-medium risk pollution sources, which occur in large areas of the Cape Flats. These include low-income residential areas such as Guguletu and Khayelitsha, as well as the Philippi farming areas; and,so-called “nodal sources” of pollution, including waste water treatment works and numerous waste disposal sites…
Adelana and Xu say their study shows urban development – well known to have a negative impact on groundwater quality – is taking place over many parts of the Cape Flats aquifer. The threats from this are:low-to-medium risk pollution sources, which occur in large areas of the Cape Flats. These include low-income residential areas such as Guguletu and Khayelitsha, as well as the Philippi farming areas; and,so-called “nodal sources” of pollution, including waste water treatment works and numerous waste disposal sites. “Physico-chemical analysis of groundwater in the study area revealed high levels of nitrates, chlorides, phosphates and, locally, fluoride. The paper also notes the provision of adequate sanitation to the numerous people living in informal settlements on the Cape Flats “is prominent and fundamental to public health”. Within the Cape Town municipality, sources of contamination include cemeteries, stormwater and wastewater systems. “Other significant sources.

Provision of safe drinking water
Press Information Bureau – Press Information Bureau (press release) – Dec 19, 2006
To supplement the efforts of the State Governments in this direction, financial assistance and technical support is rendered by the Central Government to the State Governments through a Centrally Sponsored Scheme namely Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) under Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission of Department of Drinking Water supply, Ministry of Rural Development. State Governments are, however, competent to plan, sanction, implement and execute rural water supply schemes for the coverage of rural habitations from funds provided under ARWSP. 02% habitations are fully covered, 2. 73% are partially covered and 0. 21% habitations are not covered a community based National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Programme has been launched in the country to tackle chemical contamination, which aims at testing various parameters for all drinking water sources by the grassroot level works in each Panchayat by simple-to-use field test kits with provision for one field test kit each for every Gram Panchayats in the country for this purpose. Further, with effect from 1st April, 2006, it has been decided to retain upto 20% of ARWSP funds to mitigate water quality problems on focused manner…
Drinking Water Supply is one of the six components of Bharat Nirman which has been conceived as a plan to be implemented in four years from 2005-06 to 2008-09 for building rural infrastructure as informed by the Department of Drinking of Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development. The objective of the said component is to cover 55067 uncovered habitations as well as to address problem of slipped back and quality affected habitations. This information was given by the Minister of State for Water Resources, Shri Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav in response to a question by Dr. Malaisamy in the Rajya Sabha today.