The state government will set up laboratories soon at all district headquarters in the state for water testing to provide safe drinking water to people after it was found that most diseases are caused by polluted drinking water. These laboratories will be funded by IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) and set up by the Indian Institute of Public Health, Union ministry of health. One mobile unit will be placed at the nine ITDAs in the state to collect water samples regularly from interior areas of the Agency.

Water has always been an issue in California. But drought conditions, not to mention worries about continued supplies of clean water, are turning water into a growth industry in California and elsewhere. Big companies like General Electric, Siemens and Veolia Environnement of France have ambitious plans to bring water to developing countries and clean water everywhere. But many small companies are finding niches and doing well these days, too. Puretec Industrial Water, of Oxnard, California, for example, "grew 34 per cent last year," said Mr Jim Harris, the owner and president.

Environmentalist and Mhadei Bachao Abhiyan Vice President Nandkumar Kamat is at a loss of words to explain the Government's inefficiency to check whether water supplied in people's homes was actually safe for drinking. Addressing a press conference on the eve of World Environment Day that falls tomorrow (June 5), Kamat lamented, "What we are drinking is actually poison water. There are no quality checks and the Government has not bothered to address the problem in spite of reminders and individual representations.'

India has moved from tongas to metro rail and typewriters to laptops between December 1984 and June 2008. But the unfinished tasks related to the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 continue to remain like a blot on industry as well as the state and central governments.

Looks like the State Government needs High Court to remind it that one of its duties is to ensure that the people in Goa get adequate unpolluted drinking water. And, the right to get unpolluted drinking water falls within the ambit of right to life.

Drinking water in Dosaludiki, Sayala and Kasapuram villages in Guntakal mandal has been contaminated for quite some years with authorities doing nothing so far. A summer storage tank was constructed at Kasapuram village which is filled by pumping water from the Gooty sub branch canal. Water to this canal is released at the regulatory pipeline located in G. Kottala from the Guntakal branch canal. The Gooty branch canal which passes through Guntakal has been converted into a drainage canal by residents living on either side of it.

Residents of Bantlapalli in Atmakur mandal of Nellore district have been facing severe drinking water problem for the last few years. The village has 500 people and residents suffer from kidney and skin diseases, many becoming disabled as the water available in the village has high quantity of fluoride content. People who are in their 40s have aged and doctors have been advising them to leave the village instead of going for treatment. People have to walk nearly 1.5 kms to the adjacent Khansahebpet village of Marripadu mandal to fetch drinking water.

The Corporation quarters on M M Road in Cox Town, opposite the Government Boys School, which houses 10 residences has been receiving coloured drinking water contaminated with worms for over a week. Leakage of water through the old corroded pipes in the area is said to be the cause for it and BWSSB has temporarily rectified the leakage on Friday.