Delhi's water quality cannot be judged on basis of 11 samples: Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said that the city's tap water quality cannot be judged based on an analysis of just 11 samples.

"Any city's water quality cannot be judged on the basis of just 11 samples. Moreover, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan is not disclosing where the samples were taken from. I will take five samples from each ward of Delhi, get it checked and then put the data in public," Kejriwal told reporters at a press conference here.

Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on November 16 said that tap water in Delhi and several other cities did not comply with the requirements according to a study conducted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

"Mumbai tops ranking released by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for quality of tap water. Delhi is at the bottom, with 11 out of 11 samples failing on 19 parameters," Paswan had said while addressing a press conference here on Saturday.

Kejriwal said that 2,000 samples should have been taken in Delhi for a better estimation of water quality.

"Delhi Jal Board (DJB) takes 500 samples of water every day from different parts of the city. From January to September, DJB took 1,55,302 samples out of which 2,222 samples failed. This means that around 1.43 per cent samples failed and 98.57 per cent samples passed the test," he said.

"In October, DJB took 16,502 samples out of which 658 samples failed. This means only around 4 per cent samples failed," he added.

Kejriwal said that the politics being done on water is not right.

"For 70 years, these people have ruined Delhi. We can't do everything in 5 years. But we claim that the water quality in Delhi has improved," he added.