Surveillance of Drinking Water Quality for Safe Water Supply—A Case Study from Shillong, India

To ascertain the quality of drinking water being supplied and maintained, it is necessary to conduct water quality surveillance for evolving suitable strategy for future planning. In the present investigation, water quality was monitored in treatment plants, service reservoirs, and at consumer ends in three seasons to assess the baseline water quality status at Shillong in Meghalaya. There are three water treatment plants at Shillong namely Umkhen, Mawlai and GSWS with design capacities of 1.5, 3.4 and 34 Million liter per day (MLD) respectively. Each treatment plant is having rapid sand filtration followed by disinfection. The study reveals that the physico-chemical parameters of water quality at consumer end meets Indian drinking water quality standards (BIS 1991) after conventional treatment followed by disinfection, whereas the bacteriological parameters for raw water sources exceed the permissible limit indicating the treatment need for drinking purposes. Throughout year the average feacal coliform contamination at service reservoir and to consumer end were found as 44 to 156 CFU/100 ml which may be attributed to the general management practices for maintenance of service reservoirs and the possibility of en route contamination.