Perbadanan Urus Air Selangor (previously Waterworks Department) recently talked about taking action against the illegal installation of water-vending machines. AS Toh went a step further and suggested that Puas take action against the illegal installation of the tens of thousands of domestic water filters in the Klang Valley.

The tens of thousands of domestic water filters mentioned by AS Toh is likely way off the mark. I did a survey amongst my friends and relatives in the Klang Valley and discovered that more than 70 per cent had a water filter fitted in their homes. Those who had water filters installed include retired and serving staff of Puas.

A more accurate figure should be hundreds of thousands of domestic water filters in the Klang Valley. Talk and suggestion of taking action against such illegal installations by Puas is absolutely meaningless because in the first place the cause of such installations is the dirty water supplied by Puas to its consumers.

All Puas has to do in order to prevent further such installations and also to encourage existing installations to be dismantled is to supply clear and clean water to all its consumers.

Explaining with terms such as 'contamination due to back siphoning' and 'something known as suction' are meaningless to consumers. I cannot see such contamination with my eyes nor have I tasted such contamination with my mouth.

However, for too many years now I have been seeing dirty water coming out of the taps in my house. I have had my clothes destroyed by large patches of mud after a washing machine wash. I have seen little red worms coming out of my kitchen tap.

When I reported the worms to a Puas engineer he had a good laugh at my ignorance. "Those little red creatures are not worms. They are larvae. Some fly or insect had laid eggs inside the service reservoir and the eggs had hatched." So I was told.

Instead of taking action against operators of water-vending machines, Puas should be taking action against its own officers for supplying dirty and muddy water to its consumers which I believe amounts to inefficiency and irresponsibility.

Puas should stop using the issue of operators of illegal water-vending machines as a red herring to divert attention away from the issue of dirty water being supplied to consumers.