The Bihar Chapter of  Indian Buildings Congress, held a webinar on 17^th May, 2020 on the topic  ‘Testing and Purification of Drinking water’. Eminent speakers were invited who presented their views on the topic.

Shri Harendra Dubey, Honorary Secretary Bihar State chapter, IBC in his introduction speech  welcomed  Shri O.P.Goel, founder President, IBC;  Shri  Pradeep Mittal, President, IBC; all speakers and viewers. He expressed  the importance of water to life and necessity of testing and purification. He expressed his thanks to the President, IBC for his proactive approach in initiating the process of holding webinar in this difficult time of Pandemic due to COVID-19. He expressed hope that inputs/ suggestions flowing out of the seminar will be of immense help in making available pure drinking water to the society.

Shri Pradeep Mittal, President, IBC, in his opening address  welcomed Shri O.P.Goel, Founder President, IBC,  Shri Rajeev Upadhyaay , Shri Harendra Dubey, all experts/ spekers in webinar and  all the viewers/ audience.  He briefed about the role and vision of IBC. While lauding the role of IBC in ‘Built Environment’ He called upon non-IBC members among viewers/ audience  for enrolling themselves as life member of IBC for knowledge sharing  through this bigger platform having experts from different field and to give more strength to IBC. He expressed that  in this difficult COVID-19 Situation, the role of testing  of water for making available pure drinking water to the society has gained more importance. There is scarcity of water across the Globe. To make available sufficient and pure drinking water to the society is a challenge. He mentioned that Water is the basic necessity of life and one cannot think of life without water. “Jal Hi Jiwan Hai’. He also expressed the necessity of conservation of water through rain water harvesting and recycling besides need of economising the costly water purification tools/gadgets  being  used by the users.

Shri O.P.Goel, Founder President, thanked the organisers of webinar for giving him this honour to share his views. In his address he briefed the audience about the history of IBC. While thanking every viewer of  the webinar, he informed that IBC has been arranging seminars on different topics of national and international importance in Built environment for the welfare of society. Today’s webinar is also in the same series and expressed that it will benefit the viewers.

Shri Rajeev Upadhyay in his address dealt mostly about the society and institution of families and their relation with welcome drink of water to visitors. He informed that the world has revolutionised and we are evolving. Generally we do not question the quality of water when it is given to us in welcome drink during our visit to anyone’s house because we trust the quality of water. But this trust is getting shattered because of the revolution in science where there is question mark on water purification regarding its processes and whether it is absolutely pure in all aspect or simply looks clearer but contains harmful contents. He called upon the viewers to make it a habit to maximise consumption of tested pure water. He mentioned the four important processes in this regard namely Need, Availability, Disposable income and Willingness to accept the quality. He emphasised the need of testing of water instantaneously at the source.

Shri Tathagat Chakraborty in his presentation started with need of understanding water, its availability globally on surface, underground and in atmosphere, How much  percentage of it can be used,  water deficit areas, profile of earth w.r.t water etc.. He underlined the importance of  testing of water to diagnose  and treatment processes to deal with impurities of water in the form of contamination, physical attributes, Chemical attributes and microscopic entities present in water. Water contains many physical attributes like, suspended solids, turbidity, dissolved solids, absurd Ph Value; Heavy metals and salts, arsenic, iron , lead, mercury, Coliform & viruses. Water being universal solvent, many salts get dissolved into it. Without properly testing the water, its purity for drinking can not be ascertained. Dirty water having larger turbidity/ suspended solids can lead to death of plants in bed of river/ pond/sea etc because the sun light will not reach the plant;  death of aquatic life and increase in coliform concentration. He informed operations like mining, smelting, timber processing, glass pharmaceuticals, burning of fossil fuel and volcanic eruptions causes addition of arsenic in atmosphere which gets mixed with water. It adversely affects human health system. The coliform contamination testing is divided to find out total coliform, thromo tolerant and E-Coli. The E-Coli  is a  bacteria present only  in human faeces and will be found in water if it has come in contact with human faeces/ excreta/ sewage. He also briefed about the permitted level of impurities in water as per WHO/APHA/USEPA/ BIS standards.

He informed that the testing of water at the site is necessary to avoid errors in sample collection, change in physio-chemical properties due to longer time lag between sample collection & testing and loss of data during transit. He informed that presently mobile onsite testing kits are being used by them which tests the water at source, gives real time test report at spot, instantly conveys the total data and test report to the dash board of central office where it is analysed centrally to ascertain the process of purification of water to make it drinkable.

Many questions of the viewers were also answered by Shri Chakraborty.

Shri Sunil Choudhary, Vice-Chairman, IBC Bihar chapter and Director, BCD, Patna, Govt. of Bihar, presented the vote of thanks. He thanked everyone who joined in this webinar. He also thanked the founder President for his valuable guidance and Shri Pradeep President, President, IBC for his initiative and untiring efforts in holding the webinar.  He gave his special thanks to Shri Rajeev Upadhyay and his team for their co-operation.

At the end the Webinar was concluded by Shri Harendra Dubey, Secretary, Bihar State Chapter of IBC by expressing his  gratitude  to all those who contributed in making the webinar a grand success.