The Federation of Khasi Garo and Jaintia People (FKJGP) has denounced the claim of Public Health Engineering (PHE) Minister Marcuise Marak that the water supplied to Shillong city is clean, safe and ready to drink.
The pressure group had collected samples from 46 sites in and around Shillong and had them tested. Forty-four samples came back with warnings over their metal and/or biological organism content or turgidity.
However, yesterday Marak claimed that the PHE Department tests the water regularly at the Mawphlang station from where it is dispensed to Shillong.
The flaw in that argument, though, is that while the PHE may be testing the water at Mawphlang, the FKJGP collected their samples from the neighbourhoods of Shillong after the water has passed through many kilometres of piping.
Reacting to the minister’s clean chit, FKJGP president Dundee Khongsit said, “If this is the case then all the ministers and bureaucrats in the Secretariat should directly drink the water supplied by the PHE Department and there is no need to install filters or aquaguards.”
“The federation is not surprised at the attempt of the PHE Minister to shield his own department at the way they are working, which has led to the report of the 44 samples of water being unsafe for consumption,” he added.
The FKJGP leader also said that it appeared that Marak made his statement without even bothering to go through the report submitted to him and the Chief Minister by the pressure group.
Marak had told reporters yesterday that the water supplied by the PHE Department is thoroughly tested every day in their accredited laboratory, emphasising its safety for consumption. He further stated that the veracity of water samples collected by others is unknown to him but that the PHE’s water supply is of high quality.
According to the FKJGP president, the 46 water samples collected from various water tanks in the localities of the city were tested as per standard procedures by the State Food Testing Laboratory at Pasteur Hills.
