India has been ranked at a lowly 120 among the 122 countries where there is poor quality of drinking water, says a development report of the United Nations.

India has been placed at 120 in the list of the countries according to the quality of their water as well as their ability to improve the situation, Urban Development Minister Pon Radhakrishnan told the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

In a written reply, Radhakrishnan said since urban water supply is a state subject, it is the responsibility of the state governments and urban local bodies to provide potable water to the people by treating surface and ground water to make it fit for human consumption.

He said the urban development ministry had provided grant-in-aid and assistance from the World Health Organisation to the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur, for conducting research on water quality surveillance in selected cities.

The ministry of rural development had already initiated action plans for solving the problem of quality drinking water in rural areas, including earmarking of 15 per cent of Accelerated Rural Water Supply programme funds for tackling the problem, he added.

UNI