Investigation of water quality changes in drinking water supplied from Sitlee water treatment plant on River Tawi to Old Jammu City, Jammu, J&K, India

Abstract

In the present study, an attempt has been made to evaluate the water quality changes in River Tawi water treated at Sitlee water treatment plant, and supplied for drinking to Old Jammu City, Jammu, J&K, India. Water samples from the treated water unit of Sitlee water treatment plant and around ten houses from the distribution point (Old Jammu City) were analyzed monthly for various physicochemical parameters for a period of one year (February 2014 to January 2015). The study indicated deterioration of drinking water quality during its passage through the distribution network which has been attributed to the leakages and defects in the old pipe system supplying water to the Jammu city. Comparison of analyzed water quality parameters with the drinking water standards prescribed by World Health Organization (WHO) and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) indicated that parameters like DO (7.49-8.24mg/l), calcium(49.93-67.08mg/l), magnesium(16.14-25.21mg/l) and potassium(6.99-7.93mg/l) were almost nearing the desirable limits but were within the permissible limits and parameters like turbidity(3.5-8.17 NTU) and total hardness(78.87-120.50mg/l) were above the desirable limits in the water samples collected from the distribution point. The collected primary data for the thirteen water quality parameters has been used to calculate the Arithmetic Water Quality Index(WQI) which has shown monsoon increase with higher values at distribution point(65.65). One time microbial analysis (MPN/100ml) for total and faecal coliform has indicated presence of faecal coliform (<1/100ml) in water samples from eight households at distribution point which indicates contamination of water with human faecal matter during its passage through the distribution network. According to microbial standards laid down by Central Pollution Control Board (2008), water contaminated with faecal coliform is unfit for drinking without conventional treatment.