Physicochemical and microbiological profile of the potable water of Eastern Himalayan State Sikkim: An Indication of Severe Fecal Contamination and Immediate Health Risk

Increasing population, rapid urbanization and climate change have immensely affected the freshwater sources around the world. The continuous decline in the number of natural potable water sources raises serious concern about the overall health of the human population. Developing countries are the most affected in this regard due to lack of proper hygienic maintenance protocols. Sikkim an Eastern Himalayan state with mountains as predominant topological features, harbors several natural spring water (SW). These spring waters are the primary source of potable water for the population in the four districts of the state viz. East (E), West (W), South (S) and North (N). Several incidences of water-borne diseases and the relative lack of scientific evaluation reports on the water quality of the area have educed this study. Lack of any standard filtration and purification practice among the population is one of the prime factors for the outspread of different waterborne pathogen in the state. The people of the state mostly use boiling as a dominant method of water purification, while only a small percentage of people in the West district were found to use modern standard purification system (W = 30%). The rainy season was found to be the major contributor of different diseases (E = 86%; W=100%; S=100%; N=80%) and statistical analysis of the fecal coliforms of the different season also indicated a significant difference at p < 0.05. There was no statistical significance among the physicochemical parameter of the SW but surprisingly the water from the four districts was recorded with traces of highly toxic heavy metals like mercury/WHO limit (0.001-0.007mg/l/0.001) as well as lead/WHO limit (0.001-0.007mg/l/0.05) and selenium/WHO limit (0.526-0.644 mg/l/0.01) which was above the WHO permissible limit. Piper analysis showed that water was dominated by cation sodium ion (Na+) and bicarbonate (HCO3-) anion and the water can be categorized as Mg-HCO3- type. Pairwise Pearson correlation showed a significant correlation between Electrical conductivity and TDS (r = 0.998/1.00) as well as alkalinity and turbidity (0.993/1.00). The microbial confirmatory test showed severity in fecal contamination with high counts of Total Coliform (TC), Escherichia coli (EC) and Enterococcus (EN). Highest TC was recorded from W (37.26/ml) and lowest in N (22.13/ ml) in spring water. Highest contamination of Escherichia coli and Enterococcus was found in E (EC = 8.7/ml; EN = 2.08/ml) followed by S (EC = 8.4/ml and EN = 2.05/ml). It was found that community reservoir (CR) tank was more contaminated than SP, which indicates the negligence in maintenance and fecal contamination during transportation to the reservoir. Though household water was least contaminated compared to CR and SP, but it fails in WHO standard criteria for drinking water. These results indicate an immediate health risk of the resident of the state and which needs to be taken care of sooner as possible by protecting the important potable sources with required policies and regulations.