The New Town authorities have installed automated quality-monitoring devices in at least eight water reservoirs in all three action areas, an official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) said.
There are 23 water reservoirs in New Town that are run jointly by the public health engineering department and the NKDA. The monitoring device will be fitted to the remaining 15-odd reservoirs as well, the NKDA official said.
New Town requires 12 million gallons per day (MGD) of water, which is supplied from the 20MGD water treatment plant behind Nazrul Tirtha, the official said.
The plant treats water drawn from the Hooghly and has an in-built quality check system that monitors the quality of filtered or treated water 24X7.
“These newly installed devices will be an additional check on the quality of water. And as they are completely automatic, they will raise red flags the moment there is a problem with the quality,” said the official.
The devices that are being fitted to the water reservoirs test specific parameters, including the presence of pathogens, bacteria and the turbidity of the water round-the-clock.
NKDA chairman Debashis Sen said that apart from installation of the water quality-measuring devices, they would also issue an advisory to all gated communities, cooperative housing societies, offices and commercial establishments to clean their water reservoirs every three months.
“We have received a few complaints of dirty water flowing out of taps and in most cases we found that the overhead tanks or underground reservoirs of houses and other establishments have not been cleaned for several months. If the tanks are cleaned regularly, then the chances of dirty water flowing out of taps will go down considerably,” said Sen.
In addition to this, the NKDA is also going to put up details of a water-quality testing laboratory run by the public health engineering department in New Town on their website —www.nkdamar.org.
Residents can bring water samples from their homes for testing at this lab.
