Abstract

Water is an essential vital element among the natural resources and is important for the endurance of all living creatures
including human, animals, microorganism, and plants. Water quality is affected due to the human activity such as urbanization,
road construction, and industrial production. India has 75.8 million people living without access to clean water. Indian busiest
railway stations are always in demand for drinking water; hence, packaged drinking water concept has started to provide the
safe and clean drinking water to the travelers. Bureau of Indian Standards has given quality assessment standard for drinking
water. However, parameter like total organic carbon (TOC) is not mentioned in that standard. Various researchers have proved
that TOC can help to determine the degree of pollution and organic matters present in the water. In the present study, packaged
drinking water and tap drinking water were collected from the railway station and analyzed for total organic content using TOC
analyzer. TOC was found in the range of 0.71–98.57 ppm. This system would be implanted in the drinking water and sewage
water filtration plant to effectively identify the organic carbon and there is a serious need to incorporate this parameter in the
water quality standard to keep track on the organic matters present in the drinking water.