The NGT Notification to ban RO water purifiers

The NGT has instructed the Environment Ministry on to issue a two-month notice to ban RO Purifiers which has less than 500miligrams of dissolved solids or TDS per litre.

A bench lead by Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel who is the NTG chairperson said that the delay in compliance of this order has led to serious effects to the public and to the environment. As a result, they have recommended a quick response to this matter.

However, the MoEF had been granted more time after it had told the tribunal that the exercise could not be completed due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests [MoEF] had requested to be given up to four months to execute the order issued by the National Green Tribunal.

This tribunal also noted that any steps to protect the environment should be prompt and the period given to circulate the draft should not be longer than they had proposed. Instead, they wanted the period to be reduced to 2 months.

The MoEF had also recommended for effective compliance of the 4 months compliance order issued by the NGT and then 2 months for circulating the draft notification to allow people to comment.

They also recommended another two months for going through the comments and finalizing the notification. Within this time, they should also obtain approvals from the Ministry of Law and Justice.

During the last meeting, the NGT had accused the ministry of delaying issuing the notification and they had even warned that they would cancel the salary of the concerned officer.

The tribunal had earlier mentioned that its order was based on a report they had received from a committee of experts which also had a MoET representative. According to them, this order should be enforced without the approval of any other authority with penal consequences.

As a way of regulating the use of Reverse Osmosis in best water purifier, the NTG had instructed the government to ban those that had total dissolved solids of less than 500 milligrams per litre. They also wanted the government to educate the public and outline the effects of consuming deminalised water.

On top of that, this tribunal; also wanted the government to make it compulsory to recover over 60% of water in all areas where RO is permitted in the country.

TDS comprises of inorganic salts and small amounts of organic materials. According to a study conducted by WHO, the TDS level should be less than 300 mg per litre. They also regarded 900mg per litre as poor and 1200 mg to be unacceptable.

Reverse Osmosis popularly known as RO is a form of water treatment process which removes all contaminants from the water using a force that pushes the water through a semi-permeable membrane.

The order was issued after going through the recommendations from a committees of experts who had recommended that if the TDS is below 500mgs per litre, the RO system will be of no use since it will remove important minerals from the water and also cause water wastage.

The tribunal was responding to a plea that was filed by an NGO friends who had sought conservation of portable water by preventing water wastage that results due to unreliable RO systems.