A Study of Quality of Drinking Water of Potable Water of Southern Indore City, MP, India

In the present study, the water quality of drinking water of various water samples namely tap water, boring water, well and hand pump in southern Indore city has been tested. Water samples were analyzed for various water quality parameters like pH, electrical conductance, total dissolved solids, total alkalinity, total hardness, chloride, sulphate, nitrate, fluoride, sodium, potassium, mercury, iron, copper, zinc, lead and cadmium. 6% of water samples for Chloride crossed the standard permissible limit as 250mg/l. 26 % of water samples for total hardness. cross standard permissible limit that is 300mg/l (BIS, 1998).(4) In the present study the value of Magnesium concentration ranged from 3.64 mg/l to 61.96 mg/l. 18 % of water samples crossed the standard permissible limit (30mg/l) (WHO, 2004) whereas values of Calcium ranged from 4.40 mg/l to 160 mg/l. None of water samples crossed the standard permissible limit (200mg/l). In the present study the values of fluoride, nitrate and sulphate found were under the permissible limit in all the drinking water samples. None of the water samples crossed the permissible limit for heavy metals namely Copper, Cadmium, Mercury and Lead except Zinc. Only one sample crossed the permissible limit (0.3)(4) and only three sample crossed the permissible limit (0.5) for Zinc including other heavy metals namely Copper, Cadmium, Mercury and Lead in all the drinking water samples. (4)In the present study only 11% of drinking water samples were found, bacteriological unfit for drinking purpose.