Safe drinking water in India – what would you do?

I am very vigilant about water in India. A single mistake of ingesting street food or contaminated ice can result in several days of upset digestion and unpleasantness.

My first choice is boiled water. This is the safest and best choice, according to the CDC, because boiling water for one minute will kill bacteria, parasites, and viruses and purify the water. The only problem is boiled water is not always readily available.

What to do then?

Here’s a situation I recently faced. I was in a five-star hotel and attending a business conference. The bar offered both in-house filtered water and bottled water. When I asked my travel companions what to do, I was surprised the topic raised a lot of disagreement.

They were split on which is better and they brought up a lot of points I had never thought about. Here are some of the points they made.

Case for hotel filtered water

Two of my friends were adamant that the hotel filtered water was safer. Here are the reasons they gave.

Type of purification
The hotel said they used an Aquaguard filtration system which meant the water was likely UV-treated and carbon filtered. Some of the Aquaguard systems also “e-boil” the water which is a quick way of boiling water. By contrast, the bottled water did not indicate its method. It simply states “purified water” and indicates the water can be trusted, which is not always the case as some unscrupulous vendors refill bottles with tap water and seal them for resale.

Pesticides
There was a big controversy about pesticides in bottled water in 2003. Among the findings were pesticide levels as high as 14 to 100 times the accepted levels in brands like Coca Cola’s Kinley, Pepsi’s Aquafina, Bisleri, and Aquaplus. The Indian government and the brands have since said to have cracked down on the problem, but the memory remains and doubt about quality persists, which is why in-house filtration could be preferred.

Case for bottled water

But it’s not an open and shut case. My other friends strongly urged drinking the bottled water.

Hygiene
While hotel filtration could be better in theory, there are practical hurdles. The filtered water is only safe if the filters are regularly changed, and one has to trust the hotel schedules maintenance frequently enough. Plus, even if the water is safe, the glass it is served in might not be completely sanitized. Food preparation and restaurants are notoriously dirty behind closed doors so there are many places in-house water could get contaminated. Bottled water plants, by comparison, are said to follow international standards of safety, so one would hope it is clean.

Empirical practice
The other argument is one of practical experience. So far I have been safe as a traveler drinking bottled water, so whatever problems exist in bottled water, it is something of a safe bet to continue drinking it versus trying hotel filtered water. It’s a case of known risks versus unknown risks, and based on my history it could be better to stick with the practice of bottled water.

My decision

I ultimately opted for the bottled water based on experience. I didn’t want to risk getting sick near the end of my trip on potentially tainted water. I also downplayed the pesticide issue in my mind since it was a one-time event and not harmful long-term exposure to pesticides. I can report I did not get sick so one way or another things turned out fine.

Of course, this is a topic I’d love to learn more about being a frequent traveler to India. Please help me out with your thoughts and references. Which do you think is safer: the hotel water or the bottle? What is your method for safe drinking water in India?



Share this post:

| More

Previous post:

Next post:



  • SP

    It sounds like a classical asymmetric information problem. The hotel probably knows the relative cleanliness of the two water sources.

    However, I figure that a 5-star hotel is probably not willing to poison its guests, especially at a business conference, regardless of what type of water they choose to drink. I’d have gone with the filtered water and would have saved a bit of coin in the process I’ve done this in India many times without losing any sleep over it. I prefer pasteurized milk, however.

    The best bet would have been to mimic local business folk. They’d have better knowledge of local water quality, so they’d be the best judge of the cleanliness of the filtered water. Besides, getting sick costs local businessmen time at work and hospital fees, something they’d obviously avoid.

  • Amit Baidya

    I agree with your decision to opt for the bottled water. Although I am sure that a five star hotel would know how to handle their water in a safe and appropriate manner. Based on my past travels to India bottle water is the best option when you can’t boil it.

  • RohitT

    @Sp – one thing to be cautious off, the locals might have better immunity then you when it comes to resisting the water-borne bacteria.

    I’d probably also go with the bottled water, though perhaps coming from a litigious society, it might be best to pick the company that’s easier to sue :-P

  • Evelyn

    I’d drink the filtered water.

    If I got sick at the hotel from the filtered water, I’d associate the sickness with the hotel, and would never visit them again. A five-star hotel is only going to keep five stars if it doesn’t regularly sicken their guests.

    The bottled water, is likely good as well, because the five-star hotel isn’t going to select vendors that would be of poor quality.

    The filtered water is cheaper and less wasteful, so I’d pick that.

    Outside the hotel, using one of those travel water filters would be prudent.

  • Ricardo Hernandez

    Water engineer here. When in doubt I forgo water, ice and juices altogether. When doing fieldwork in areas with dubious water quality, a very-low-alcohol-content beer is your best bet to stave off thirst. Beer brewers keep very high standards for their product, so in the rare case that anything in the process happened to be contaminated, the beer would go obviously bad because the yeasts would die and things that shouldn’t grow will grow, tipping you off. However, you can’t get away with that in an office environment. Not that you needed to: you were in a 5-star hotel.

    Bottled water requirements are hardly stringent anywhere in the world. In some places they are more lax than municipal requirements for tap water. Even if the water purification process was perfect, most of the contamination happens when the water comes in contact with the plastic bottle (and occasionally during shipping and storage). You pay a premium price for a sense of security which may or may not be warranted.

    Water filters like Aquaguard do a good job. In your Case For Bottled Water you point out that hygiene at the restaurant can be an issue (which is true). However, a 5-star certifications comes with many a sanitary inspection, so odds are the water will be good enough. The ice in it is another story, because it is usually bought and not made in place.

  • http://www.mindyourdecisions.com/blog/ Presh Talwalkar

    Thanks for the comprehensive details Ricardo. At the next business conference in India I am definitely opting for Kingfisher mild ;)

  • RohitT

    Hehe, you should promote beer drinking…there could be a sainthood involved:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_of_Soissons





Previous post:

Next post:

Other posts you may enjoy reading:

This site is for recreational and educational purposes only (privacy policy)

Powered by WordPress