New Delhi: After a brief lull, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is back to being at loggerheads with the Modi government — the latest flashpoint being the quality of water in poll-bound Delhi.
On Saturday, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan released a report by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which claimed that tap water in Delhi was the worst among 13 cities surveyed.
Responding to the report, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Monday claimed that 98.5 per cent of the water in the national capital was safe and challenged Paswan to prove him wrong.
Not to be outdone, Paswan appeared in the Lok Sabha and said he was ready to accommodate the AAP government’s demands to test the water. He said the central government would pitch three names, and called on Kejriwal to nominate three experts who can then jointly collect water samples and get them tested in whichever lab they want.
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Union ministers contradicting each other: Kejriwal
In his press conference Monday, Kejriwal said the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), which manages water supply in the national capital, had collected 1,55,000 samples of water from across the city and found that 2,222 failed a quality test. This, he added, amounted to 98.5 per cent of the water being of good quality.
The Delhi chief minister also pointed out that union ministers themselves were contradicting each other on the issue. He said that while Paswan, who holds the consumer affairs portfolio, has been dissing Delhi’s water, Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat had on 24 September said Delhi’s water quality was better than European standards.
AAP to collect five samples from each MCD ward
The issue is snowballing in the poll-bound national capital, with Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari claiming that there was “health emergency” in Delhi while citing the BIS report.
Kejriwal slammed the BIS tests, claiming that the process was not transparent.
He invited Paswan to witness sample collecting where Delhi’s AAP government will collect five samples of water from each municipal corporation ward to conclude whether water is actually clean or dirty.
Requesting the “Union government to refrain from playing politics over a sensitive issue like water and instilling fear among people”, Kejriwal said merely collecting 11 samples from Delhi doesn’t depict the true picture.
No extension to odd-even scheme
At the press conference, Kejriwal clarified that odd-even scheme will not be extended in the national capital as the skies were clear. The scheme was operational in the national capital from 4 November to 15 November.
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In Bombay, water supply and quality is the BMC’s responsibility. Thus it should be in Delhi as well.