HYDERABAD: There was a time when the people of Nalgonda district in Telangana suffered health issues due to the consumption of fluoride water. To come out of that people were encouraged to set up Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants to filter the water. Now, people are being asked not to drink RO filtered water, because filtered water loses all the minerals which are essential for the body. Instead of RO filtered water, people have been advised to drink water supplied under Mission Bhagiratha.

Mission Bhagiratha SE Suresh Kumar said that “As we don’t have another option we encouraged people to use RO filtered water in the fluoride affected places. Now, the Government has covered the affected villages under Mission Bhagritha. We are creating awareness among the people that Mission Bhagiratha water is safe and better than RO filtered water.”

In the first week of December, the Mission Bhagiratha staff is planning to conduct an awareness drive to show the difference between Mission Bhagiratha water and RO filtered water by conducting a bulb test.
Suresh Kumar said that 657 Gram Panchayats and villages in Nalgonda district had fluoride levels in the groundwater which was more than the permissible limit of 1.5 ppm. Now, all these villages are completely covered under the Mission Bhagiratha water scheme which will provide fresh treated river water henceforth.

" Through the bulb test, we can explain how Mission Bhagritha water is safe and useful for health and it helps to prove that RO water doesn’t have minerals rendering it useless,'' he explained. In Mission Bhagiratha water, the fluoride would be less than 0.6 ppm, which was less than the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) said, District Water Quality Monitoring consultant P Veera Reddy.
What is a Bulb test?
A light bulb test is a simple method to test water quality. In a light bulb circuit, a phase wire will be cut in the middle and the two wires will be placed in a glass of water without touching each other. If there are anions and captions, e.g. Minerals and other useful content, the electricity will move in the water and the light bulb will glow. The light bulb will glow while using Mission Bhagiratha water samples. But when it comes to RO water, the light bulb will not glow due to the absence of anions and captions and will be considered dead water.