Water quality inspections to be held nationwide

Via a circular, the ministry has mandated that the quality of water supplied to households in each locality be inspected at least once a year.

The inspections can be conducted without notice to supply units if there are doubts of the quality of the water reported by authorised agencies, or after an environmental incident that might impact on water quality.

The People’s Committees of cities and provinces were assigned to issue their own technical regulations on water quality for domestic use.

The committees were asked to guide the inspection on the water quality and allocate State funds to upgrade laboratory equipment at the local centres for disease control to conduct the tests.

The centres for disease control would take responsibility for inspections at units that supply water to more than 500 households or have capacity of 1,000 cubic metres per day. For units with smaller capacity, the centres were asked to direct local health centres to do the work.

Specialised agencies under the ministry would collect the results of the inspections and report them to the ministry’s Department of Health Environment Management Agency.

Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, head of the ministry’s Department of Health Environment Management Agency, said the move would improve the management of local authorities and the role of water supply units in ensuring clean water for citizens.

In the last 10 years, three to four large-scale water pollution incidents and hundreds of small-scale cases have been reported throughout the country each year. The quality of surface water in Vietnam has also been decreasing.

Figures from the Ministry of Health showed that each year, about 9,000 people die due to poor water and hygiene conditions on average. Polluted water was also the reason for more than 100,000 cases of cancer each year.

The Government’s National Programme on New Rural Development targets that more than 95% of households nationwide could access clean water by 2020.