Water purifiers offer no safety against contamination
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24/07/2008
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Deccan Herald (Bangalore)
By Prabuddh Banerjee
Despite tall claims by producers of water purifiers, most of them fail to ensure safe drinking water for the household.
Our drinking water is supposed to deliver essential nutrients and minerals needed for healthy life. It should help maintain acidic levels in our body and natural streams must provide antioxidants. Finally, it should be free of all contaminants. But more often than not, water supplied to us has exactly the opposite characteristics.
"More than a crore Indians die every year due to unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation,' says a World Health Organisation study published recently in a medical journal Lancet. Curative disease burden can be reduced considerably by just improving access to clean water.
You will be shocked to know that there are over 2,000 types of contaminants in our ordinary glass of tap water. It is true, people buy water purifiers thinking that they will be able to keep out the "bad things' and be able to retain "good things'. The public water supply system in India is unreliable and people with money do not depend on this water. Instead of risking their health, they install water purifiers. However, many systems