Owners of drinking water tanker lorries called off their strike on Thursday, following talks with district collector P.I. Sheikh Pareeth.

During the meeting, permission was granted to the tankers for supplying water anytime, except for four hours, from 8 am to 10 am and 4 pm to 6 pm.

Meanwhile, the district collector made it clear the joint inspection of tank-ers by the police, RTO and health officials would co-ntinue in the coming days.

Tankers have been allowed to draw water from 26 sources in the district identified by the health department.

Apart from this, the reservoirs of Kerala Water Autho-rity at Aluva, Paravoor and Thammanam will pr-ovide water to the tan-kers round the clock.

KWA pump houses at Choondy, Perumanoor and Muppathadam will supply water during the day.

The tankers can draw water from these six reservoirs by paying Rs 30 for 10, 000 litres. The collector also said that permission would be giv-en to more water sources after an inspection.

The health department has been asked to submit weekly reports after conducting a regular inspection of water sources.

“If tanker water is found to be polluted, action will be taken against the owners. Vehicles supplying contaminated water will be sei-zed,” said the collector.

The district administration has made it clear that it was unlawful to supply tanker water to the construction sector.

Those tankers providing water to the sector should be painted in a different colour. The district authorities have taken necessary measures to check the spread of water-borne diseases.

Compared to last year, the number of hepatitis cases in the district has come down, the collector said. Special medical squ-ads have been pressed into service in areas like West Kochi.

No mechanism to check water purity

The city which is heavily dependent on the water supply by tankers lacks an effective mechanism to check the purity of water.

Many of the parched areas in the city like West Kochi have no water sources other than the tankers.

However, when water-borne diseases are on the rise, the authorities are still clueless as to how to ensure the purity of water being supplied by the tankers.

There are 400 tankers supplying water to various par-ts of the city. Each tanker carries an average of four loads to eight loads a day.

Following widespread complaints about the quality of water and the subsequent media reports, district collector P.I Sheikh Pareeth had recently ban-ned the system of drawing water from an open source.

The tankers have been strictly instructed to take water from only those 26 sources identified by the health department.

Responding to the lack of facilities to check water purity, the collector said, “If the public has any compl-aints regarding the quality of water, they can file a complaint and we’ll take immediate action.”

Despite the district administration’s strict ban on taking water from open sourc-es, tankers still draw water from Periyar and other sources.

‘Promote private laboratories for water testing’

With mounting complaints regarding quality of drinking water being supplied in the city by the private tankers, there is urgent need to promote laboratories for testing the quality of water being supplied.

Presently the city has only two private laboratories which are approved by the Food Safety Standards Autho-rity of India (FSSAI).

Stressing the need to set up more laboratories under public-private partnership (PPP) mode, Shivdas B. Menon, managing director of Sterling Test House said that government agencies alone cannot tackle such issues and participation of priv-ate players was essential.

Issues like sale of contaminated water, adulterated milk or unhygienic food need to be attended in a speedy and effective manner, he added.

The only government laboratory in the district, the Regional Analytical Laboratory at Kakkanad, is flooded with samples.