Drinking Water Paradox
I still remember my first visit to the United States in 1997. I was accommodated at the International House, or I-house, at the University of Chicago, feeling tired after a long journey and eager to settle in. My first question to the hostel guide was where I could find drinking water. He looked somewhat confused at first. He then pointed towards the kitchen sink and, staring at me, said, “From the tap in the kitchen. We all drink tap water.” With hesitation, years of conditioning kicked in when I asked this question, as back in India, we boil it, filter it, and sometimes buy it. Sensing my doubt, he reassured me again: this was government-supplied water, treated, monitored, safe. People drank it without a second thought. Nearly three decades later, that moment still lingers. Not because American tap water was extraordinary, but because our country’s tap water so often is not.
The recent water contamination tragedy in Bhagirathpura, Indore, is a brutal reminder. Nearly a dozen people are reported to have died, and hundreds fell ill after consuming contaminated water. Diarrhoea, vomiting, dehydration, and avoidable deaths have occurred. Sad incidents that should never happen in any city, especially one that prides itself on cleanliness and good governance. The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court rightly called the incident a “public health emergency,” stressing that access to clean drinking water is part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court summoned the chief secretary, held senior officials accountable, and ordered urgent steps such as supplying safe water, setting up health camps, repairing pipelines, testing water samples and planning long-term water safety measures. But Indore is not an exception. It has exposed a wider and deeper problem.
Let us ask a simple question. How many of our neighbourhood families drink or we do drink water directly from the tap? The honest answer is: the majority of us will say no. Instead, India runs a parallel water economy. Bottled mineral water, RO purifiers, UV filters, community filtration plants. Every restaurant, railway station, airport, temple, mosque, and office now installs RO units as a matter of routine. We all notice that packaged drinking water companies are doing roaring business, not because Indians love brands, but because they fear disease. This fear is rational. Water-borne illnesses like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, acute diarrhoeal disease continue to stalk Indian households. For millions, “safe water” is something you buy, not something you receive as a right. In Europe, the US or Japan, bottled water is a lifestyle choice. In India, it is a survival strategy.
The water crisis hits hardest in India’s slums and unrecognised colonies. These are the areas that keep our cities running. The people who clean our homes, guard our buildings, cook our food, work in factories, deliver packages and maintain our streets often go back to homes where clean drinking water is a rare luxury. Because these settlements are labelled “unauthorised”, they are often left out of official city services. In many such colonies, clean water pipelines do not reach them, and even when they do, the supply is irregular and often unsafe. Families line up every day with plastic buckets and cans, waiting for government water tankers. They never know when the tanker will come or whether the water will be safe to drink. Women and children suffer the most. The scenes in rural areas are equally concerning, where women and children walk long distances, sometimes for hours, to collect safe drinking water and then carefully divide the limited water between drinking, cooking, and washing. In the summer, shortages lead to anger, fights, and despair. The irony is painful: the people who make cities livable are denied the most basic need for life. This is not just a failure of infrastructure; it is a moral failure of our society.
Our country is progressing. Gone are the days when India suffered because of the partition and people struggled for their existence. Today, we proudly call ourselves the developing world’s fourth-largest economy. Our highways are bigger, airports more modern, metros faster, and digital payments easy. Yet millions of our countrymen suffer, mostly at the basic level: providing safe drinking water from its taps.
The Indore tragedy exposed this harsh reality. It gained attention after a social media clash between a local leader and a journalist, which brought long-standing governance failures into the open. Several cases of sickness are now in the forefront after consuming tap water. Several previous warnings were ignored, complaints were dismissed, and responsibility was repeatedly delayed. Years ago, a pollution control board report had already found most water samples in Indore unsafe. Plans to lay new pipelines were stalled because funds were not released. The system failed again and again until people began to die.
Recent reports under the Jal Jeevan Mission present an equally worrying picture. In Madhya Pradesh, more than one-third of rural drinking water samples were found unsafe, worse than the national average. In government hospitals, only a small number of water samples met basic safety standards. Several institutions, including schools, continue to face widespread contamination. In some places, where tap connections exist, they often do not work properly. Taps run dry, water comes only at odd hours, and leaking pipes lie next to sewer lines, creating constant risks of contamination. This should be an eye opener and our authorities, as well as local NGO’s social workers, religious leaders need to see across the country, and more so where their access is easy, that how we can improve the standards of our drinking water, a lifeline.
Our country and we, as citizens, do not suffer from a lack of schemes or slogans. We suffer from neglect of basics. Safe drinking water requires unglamorous, relentless work at all levels. Officially, auditing old pipelines is a necessity. Separating sewer and water lines in ever-increasing urban cities is a must. It needs further replacement of corroded pipes, maintaining pumps and motors, ensuring proper chlorination, conducting frequent quality tests, installing online monitoring systems, and responding immediately to citizen complaints. Every state and Union Territory must be subjected to an honest audit. Municipal corporations and public health engineering departments must face some hard questions. How much money is actually spent on essential water schemes? Why are safety test reports ignored? Who approved unsafe water supplies? Why do some neighbourhoods suffer year after year? This is not about blaming people for the sake of it. It is about fixing responsibility when lives are at stake.
Clean drinking water is not a special benefit for a particular class, gated colonies or those who can pay. It is not a favour from the government. It is a basic constitutional right that comes from the right to life. That is why the Indore High Court’s words are important. By calling the incident a “public health emergency,” the court made one thing clear: unsafe water is not a minor problem; it is a violation of fundamental rights.
How many of you must have noticed that when our loved ones return to India from a long stay in developed foreign countries, and if they drink tap water, they fall sick, experience loose motion, and pain in the abdomen. This is an uncomfortable truth we often ignore. Foreign tourists and even Non-Resident Indians visiting India are usually warned never to drink tap water, whether at home, in hotels or in restaurants.
The sad incident of Indore deaths has brought forward a painful truth that needs to be addressed. Indore is known as India’s cleanest city. Today, it is in the spotlight for a disaster that could have been prevented. If this moment is wasted, it will become just another tragedy that people forget. Our country needs a serious national rethink on drinking water. This means clear and public audits, independent water testing, strict punishment for serious negligence, and open sharing of water quality data. Slums and unrecognised colonies must be brought into official water supply systems. Only when every Indian child, rich or poor, can drink water from a tap without fear, then, we truly call ourselves a developed country. Until then, the booming bottled water industry will keep growing by profiting from a failure that no civilised society should accept.
Surinder Singh Oberoi,
National Editor Greater Kashmir
