Around 44% people living in Delhi slums depend on bottled water: Report

Nearly 44 per cent residents of Delhi slums depend on bottled water for drinking purposes, while around 76 per cent of households in the city have piped water connections, revealed a report based on a survey by the Delhi government.

It also showed that 71 per cent of household dwellings were connected to the piped sewer system and 28.5 per cent were using the 'flush to septic tank' system.

The report was based on the results of the State Sample of 76th national sample survey on 'Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition' carried out by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics of the Delhi government.

The report was delayed first due to the assembly polls in Delhi in 2020 and later due to the Covid pandemic, officials said.

The report prepared by the Data Processing and Analysis Unit of the directorate showed 76 per cent dwellings had piped water supply, 7.5 per cent used tube wells and seven per cent bottled water while 3.8 per cent used public tap and 3.3 per cent depended on water tankers.

The number of households using bottled water as the primary source of drinking water doubled between 2012 and 2018.

In slums, around 44 per cent of households used bottled water for drinking purposes, according to the survey.

For sampling purposes, the survey was spread over 210 first stage units (36 villages and 174 urban framework survey blocks) covering 2,502 households (432 in rural areas and 2,070 in urban areas. It enumerated 10,986 people (2,083 in rural areas and 8,903 urban areas).

There was negligible use of hand pumps in Delhi whereas at all India level, maximum 30.5 per cent households used it as a principal source of drinking water.

In Delhi, 91.1 per cent of the households had sufficient drinking water throughout the year (80.7 per cent in rural areas and 91.3 per cent in urban areas) that was higher than 88.7 per cent at all India level, the report added.