THE WATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT
AUTHORITY, ITS FUNCTIONS AND PRESENT STATUS.
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The Water Quality is being monitored by several agencies in the country. The Central Water Commission and Surface Water Agencies in respective states while developing water resources through various projects mainly concerned with the requirements for irrigation and drinking water in terms of quantity and to some extent quality. The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and respective State Ground Water Agencies develop Ground Water resources depending upon the recharge potential with the similar objective. The Central Pollution Control Board and its State counter part are mainly concerned with the monitoring of water quality deterioration and responsible for prevention and control of pollution under Water Act, 1974 and Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD) under this Ministry also monitors the Water Quality to evaluate the implementation of pollution abatement schemes for river conservation. Network of water quality monitoring stations frequency and parameters monitored are available with the Authority.
In view of the multiplicity of agencies involved in water quality management in the country with no virtual coordination among them, the problem of pollution of national water resources has become the matter of serious concern. To circumvent the situation, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has constituted a Water Quality Assessment Authority (WQAA) with effect from 29th May, 2001 through a Gazette Notification dated 22nd June,2001. The Authority is empowered to exercise the powers under section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 for issuing directions and for taking measures with respect to matters referred to in clauses (ix), (xi), (xii) and (xiii) of sub-section 2 of section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
The mandate of this Authority is to direct agencies to standardize water quality monitoring methods, ensure proper treatment of wastewater to restore the water quality of surface and ground waters, take up R&D activity related to water quality management and promote recycling and reuse of treated wastewater.
The Authority will also direct the concerned agencies to draw up Action Plan for quality improvement in water bodies and monitor and review implementation of schemes launched including optimum water abstraction, maintain minimum discharge in the riverine system. The detailed terms of reference of the Authority is included in the Notification.
The Water Quality Assessment Authority has so far performed the following tasks:
Constituted the Expert Group for review of the present Water Quality Monitoring programme for formulating a monitoring protocol. The protocol has been finalized.
Constituted the State Level Water Quality Review Committees to review the monitoring practices at the state level and to highlight the important state issues for consideration by the Authority. So far 33 state level committees have been constituted.
Co-ordination cell in MoWR has been created for servicing the Authority.
EXPERT GROUP
An Expert Group on Water Quality Monitoring System was constitutedunder Water Quality Assessment Authority with a view to unifying and streamlining the widely varying Water Quality Monitoring Systems being followed at present by various Central and State agencies.
Some of the important recommendations of Expert Group for its uniform implementation are:
- The recommended protocol identifies different types of stations both under surface and Ground water category viz. Baseline, Trend and Trend-cum-Surveillance/impact for implementation. This categorization is based on the extent to which the water at site is polluted, the Baseline station being the least polluted by the human activity. Number of parameters and its frequency for monitoring differs at each type of stations.
- There is an urgent need for developing two referral laboratories, one with Central Water Commission and the other with Central Ground Board.
- Quality assurance test viz. analytical quality control test ‘within laboratory’ and ‘inter-laboratory’ must be performed by all laboratories for ensuring reliability in data generation.
WATER QUALITY REVIEW COMMITTEES IN STATES:
So far, Water Quality Review Committees are constituted in 33 States/UTs out of 35 States/UTs in the country.
CO-ORDINATION CELL IN MOWR
The co-ordination cell performs the following functions:
To work as Secretariat for WQAA meetings.
To work as Secretariat for WQ Monitoring Committee.
In the second meeting held on 14th May 2003 the Authority generally accepted and approved the report of the Expert Group, which is being subjected to scrutiny from technical and operational angle before Notification under Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
Under the Water Quality Assessment Authority various Task Force/Groups have been constituted. These are:
- A Water Quality Monitoring Committee has been constituted under the Chairmanship of Additional Secretary and Project Director, Ministry of Environment and Forests. This Committee assists the WQAA in its functions.
- A Task Force chaired by the Chairman, CPCB has been constituted to deal with matter relating to coordination, use and dissemination of data, review of water quality monitoring network, accreditation of water quality laboratories. The Task Force has submitted its report.
- A Working Group has been constituted with Member, Central Water Commission (CWC) as a Chairman. This group deals with issues relating to minimum flows in rivers.
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