Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has directed the Water Supply and Sanitation department to immediately get the water samples of the tube well based schemes in all the districts tested from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. This decision has been taken to provide safe drinking water free from Uranium and other heavy metals to the people specially in the rural areas. In a meeting Water Supply and Sanitation Secretary informed that the department had already got analyzed 199 water samples from Bathinda, Mansa, Ludhiana, Moga, Ferozepur, Faridkot and Muktsar districts of Malwa belt from BARC and presence of Uranium was found in some areas beyond the permissible limits. On the other hand traces of uranium had been found within permissible limit in the Canal Based Scheme. Government has installed Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants and approval for installation of 15 more RO plants in the affected villages at the cost of nearly Rs 23 crore .