Water quality rankings sink without a trace

The Indore drinking water tragedy has turned the focus on water quality across cities, with experts calling for a standardised national dashboard, similar to the one for cleanliness — ironically, topped by Indore for the past seven years.

The interesting thing is that there is such a ranking – or was. It was commissioned in 2021-22 (and conducted in 2022-23) by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs. Called the Pey Jal Survekshan survey, it was even supposed to have an awards component.

In February 2024, the ministry said the survey of 485 cities was complete.

The headline finding from the survey — that 46 of the cities were found deserving of awards in the “good water quality” category — was announced on February 29, 2024, by Manoj Joshi, the then secretary in the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, according to a government statement. The awards were scheduled for a week later at Vigyan Bhavan, on March 5. It was announced that President Droupadi Murmu would preside over the function.

But Joshi was transferred out of the department on March 4. And the awards event was cancelled. The details of the survey itself have never been published.

On July 28 2025, the ministry, in a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, stated that the findings of the survey, conducted at a cost of ₹16.96 crore, were communicated to the states at a national-level workshop held on November 22, 2023.

HT has sought responses from the Madhya Pradesh government on Indore’s ranking in that survey.

Government officials familiar with the matter said that despite the heightened interest around water quality, it is unlikely the results of the first pan-India level Pey Jal Surveksan 2022-23 will be published. Nor are there plans to conduct a similar survey again, one of the officials, from the urban affairs ministry, added, asking not to be named. Urban affairs minister Manohar Lal Khattar did not respond to a request for comment.

The nationwide Pey Jal Survekshan survey was launched in 2022 as part of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0, the Union government’s flagship urban development scheme focussed on water management.

A press release from PIB dated February 27, 2024, said 24,000 water samples were tested at source and end-user level through independent NABL labs.

While the government officials declined to elaborate on why the findings of the survey were never made public, multiple officials from various cities nationwide confirmed that the findings were shared with them. “Water quality was one of the many aspects that was discussed,” said a senior municipal official from Surat.

Other than the quality of drinking water, the survey assessed coverage, quality at treatment plants and households, sustainability, health of water bodies, availability of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition)/ flowmeters, and reuse of treated used water.

The ministry released a toolkit on September 9, 2022, after announcing a pilot of Pey Jal Survekshan in 10 cities on February 16, 2021. The toolkit recommended that cities achieve universal tap connections and ensure drinking water that meets BIS:10500 quality standards through regular NABL laboratory testing. Among other things, it said cities should develop efficient complaint redressal within 72 hours.

City officials also said that no such survey has been conducted since 2023 by the union government. A Pune city official said that the central government asked them to fill an online survey on E coli, arsenic, and fluoride in September last year, but was not sure if this was a part of an assessment under AMRUT.

The urban affairs ministry official cited above said that water quality tests at the treatment, supply stage, and household levels are conducted daily by municipal corporations and state water utilities. “This is an established practice. Urban water systems are already structured; the emphasis is on daily data mining and ensuring that city systems robustly respond to data rather than focusing on an annual survey.”

Not everyone agrees. Experts say that an annual survey, such as the one on cleanliness, could motivate city administrations to focus sharply on outcomes.

M Inayathulla, director of Water Institute, Bangalore University, said the Swacch Bharat survey itself should have an assessment system for water quality, as water is central to public health and water, energy, environment and health are interrelated. “Not only should regular such assessments be conducted, but the methodology should also be transparent so that findings can be independently verified objectively,” he said.

Vishwanath S, a senior water and sanitation expert, agreed that national-level surveys such as Swacch Bharat can work favourably in improving the performance of water utilities. He added, “More importantly, internal audits by the water utilities should be the norm at the end-user level, and the data should be made public on a real-time basis, especially that of residual chlorine. Once these internal processes improve, the same will reflect on national-level assessments.”