Waters in Goa’s lakes, borewells polluted: GSPCB

Panaji: The Goa state pollution control board (GSPCB) stated that the water of lakes, wells, borewells, estuaries, and coastal waters in the state is polluted, but the water quality of rivers and waterfalls meets prescribed standards.In its annual report released on Thursday, the board mentioned that air quality is good to satisfactory for most of the year from April 2023 to March 2024. The board monitors water quality at 115 locations throughout Goa under the national water quality monitoring programme (NWMP). The water bodies monitored include rivers, wells, canals, lakes, reservoirs, creeks, nallahs, and common STPs (inlet & outlet).Among the rivers, estuarine rivers and freshwater rivers form a part of the riverine network at water intake points for water treatment plants for public water supply.

Groundwater sources (borewell water) located within selective major industrial estates are also part of this programme. Besides, selective coastal beach locations (20 coastal shoreline waters) along the coast of Goa are also included under the NWMP network.

The 115 locations covered under this programme are distributed throughout Goa, with 54 stations in North Goa and 61 in South Goa.The 115 locations are divided into two groups, which include 107 monitored on a monthly basis and eight (bore wells located in some industrial estates) monitored on a half-yearly basis as per CPCB protocol.

A total of 1,263 samples were collected from these locations and analysed during the year 2024-2025.“NWMP locations categorised under class C (rivers/waterfalls) throughout the state comply with prescribed CPCB standards most of the year. St Inez creek (North Goa) and Bethora nallah (South Goa), categorised in class B, indicate non-compliance with CPCB’s prescribed standards most of the year for parameters like DO, BOD, faecal coliform, and faecal streptococci,” the board said.“For NWMP locations categorised under class E (lakes), parameters namely conductivity and specific absorption ratio do not comply in a few instances in the year, as per CPCB prescribed standards, while all other parameters comply,” the board said.“For NWMP locations categorised under class A (wells/bore-wells), parameters namely DO and BOD indicate non-compliance most of the year. The majority of the locations classified under SWII (estuaries and Cumbharjua canal), as well as some coastal waters, indicate non-compliance with faecal coliform as per CPCB prescribed water quality standards,” the board said.Under the national air quality monitoring programme (NAMP), the GSPCB monitors 18 ambient air quality monitoring (AAQM) locations within Goa. Besides the 18 AAQM locations, the board monitors an additional location at the fire brigade station, MPT.Out of the 18 NAMP locations, 16 locations are outsourced to laboratories recognised by the Union environment ministry, and three stations’ sampling and analysis are conducted by the board’s staff.

Parameters like particulate matter (PM10), particulate matter (PM2.5), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and nitrous oxide (NO2) have been monitored at all the stations.“Air quality in Goa, as per locations monitored for the period April 2024 to March 2025, is good to satisfactory for the maximum time of the year. However, it is satisfactory to moderate for industrial estates like Cuncolim, Tuem, Bicholim, Vasco, Baina, and Kundaim. The field observations around the monitoring locations indicate the prominence of anthropogenic activities like vehicular movements, construction activities, and road digging,” said GSPCB.There are six AQI categories, namely good, satisfactory, moderately polluted, poor, very poor, and severe, based on eight pollutants. The good to satisfactory air quality category may cause minor breathing discomfort to some people.

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