The State’s fragmented wastewater management system and the unscientific construction of septic tanks and pit latrines at homes close to shallow and open wells have resulted in persistent faecal contamination of ground water in the State, which has been documented by several studies. The groundwater resources of Kerala have been under severe stress due to changes in rainfall pattern following climate change, high population density as well the fact that approximately 62% of the population relies on groundwater from an estimated 6.5 million open wells for their domestic needs.
Researchers attributed the spike in bacterial contamination to the recent floods, which may have allowed contaminated surface water to enter water sources. Safe drinking water is one of the crucial social determinants of health. It is thus unfortunate that a State which has made enviable strides in developing its public health sector has paid little attention to ensuring that people have access to safe drinking water. access to treated water supply, in many rural areas of the State serviced by local small water supply schemes, water distribution lines often run close to sewerage lines and even small breaks in the pipelines can lead to the contamination of drinking water Epidemiological studies conducted by the ICMR and Health department into amoebic meningoencephalitis, which has emerged as a significant public health problem in Keralam in recent times, has traced the infection to the use of non-chlorinated well water which has high concentration of E.coli, in which free-living amoeba thrive Keralam’s geography, population density, lack of vast tracts of uninhabited land means that many proposed treatment plants end up being close to residential areas, which triggered huge public protests While people in urban areas have to a large extent. Such protests led to the cancellation of multiple approved septage treatment plant projects in many parts of the State. There are also reports about the State’s financial crunch affecting project payments leading to delays in implementation
A 2024 study in the Journal of Environmental Management reported that 7.4% of the State’s population could be making do with poor quality of groundwater and estimated that 0.59 million people in 252 local self government bodies in the State could be continuously exposing themselves to health risks from consuming ground water from wells which may not be chlorinated regularly. A community-level GIS study of 449 households in an urban area of Thiruvananthapuram in 2018 had reported that most of the wells were in an intermediate-high contamination risk state, with more than 77% of wells having a septic tank within 7.5 m radius. Coliform contamination was prevalent in 73% of wells, and the groundwater was predominantly acidic with a mean of 5.4, rendering it unfit for drinking.
