Water quality rankings sink without a trace

The Indore drinking water tragedy has turned the focus on water quality across cities, with experts calling for a standardised national dashboard, similar to the one for cleanliness—ironically, topped by Indore for the past seven years.

- Soumya Chatterjee

The interesting thing is that there is such a ranking - or was. It was commissioned in 2021-22 (and conducted in 2022-23) by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs. Called the Pey Jal Survekshan survey, it was even supposed to have an awards component.

In February 2024, the ministry said the survey of 485 cities was complete.

The headline finding from the survey that 46 of the cities were found deserving of awards category in the "good water quality" catewas announced on February 29, 2024, by Manoj Joshi, the then secretary in the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, according to a government statement. The awards were scheduled for a week later at Vigyan Bhavan, on March 5. It was announced that President Droupadi Murmu would preside over the function.

But Joshi was transferred out of the department on March 4.

And the awards event was cancelled. The details of the survey itself have never been published.

On July 28 2025, the ministry, in a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, stated that the findings of the survey, conducted at a cost of 16.96 crore, were communicated to the states at a national-level workshop held on November 22, 2023.

HT has sought responses from the Madhya Pradesh government on Indore's ranking in that survey.