To control drinking water and domestic water, the Ministry of Health has issued 2 National Technical Regulations (replacing Decision No. 1329/2002/BYT-QD on Hygiene Standards for drinking water): QCVN 01:2009/BYT on drinking water quality and QCVN 02:2009/BYT on domestic water quality. QCVN 01:2009/BYT regulates drinking water quality including 109 monitoring indicators; applicable to centralized water supply facilities for domestic use with a capacity of 1,000 m3/day and night or more

QCVN 02:2009/BYT only stipulates 14 monitoring indicators, applicable to small-scale water supply facilities (< 1,000 m3/day and night) and household water supply forms 01/2009/BYT

The application of these standards since their promulgation has encountered some shortcomings that need to be overcome. The classification into drinking water and domestic water is unnecessary, because in reality, it is difficult to clearly identify these two purposes of use. On the contrary, domestic water is often used as drinking water in households.

The division into two types of water quality also creates unfairness for everyone in water use, which in turn creates inequality in access to water resources for rural residents and urban residents.

Circular 41/2018/TT-BYT (hereinafter referred to as TT41) on promulgating national technical regulations and regulations on inspection and supervision of clean water quality for domestic use has been unified into a common standard, QCVN 01-1:2018/BYT on clean water quality for domestic use.

'This standard applies to organizations and individuals performing part or all of the activities of exploiting, producing, transmitting, wholesaling and retailing clean water according to a complete centralized water supply system; state management agencies on inspection, testing and supervision of clean water quality; testing laboratories and organizations certifying water quality parameters. This standard does not apply to drinking water directly from the tap, bottled water, bottled natural mineral water, water produced from water filters, water filtration systems and other types of water not used for domestic purposes.

QCVN 01-1:2018/BYT includes 99 indicators, including 4 microbiological indicators, 4 sensory indicators, 2 radiation indicators, 89 chemical indicators. Regarding monitoring regulations, Circular 41/2018/TT-BYT requires water supply units to implement 8 group A indicators in QCVN 01-1:2018/BYT; the remaining 91 indicators are assigned to localities to develop local technical regulations suitable to local characteristics and actual conditions.

Although inheriting the issued standards, scientific advances up to now, overcoming the limitations in the implementation of old water quality standards, after Circular 41, some issues are still left open:

To date, there are still no standards for the quality of drinking water directly from the tap; drinking water directly after going through a number of filtration and disinfection systems. Rural clean water and household water are still applied according to QCVN 02:2009/BYT and there are no instructions according to Circular 41.
Modern quality management perspectives are all based on "risk assessment". For water quality management, this must be reflected in the safe water supply plan that water supply facilities prepare and approve. Circular 41 mentions this content in Article 5: water supply units are responsible for storing records and documents proving the implementation of "safe water supply plans according to regulations"; but there are no regulations or instructions on this planning.
The guidance on conformity assessment according to Circular 41 is still inadequate: Article 8 of Circular 41 stipulates: “Water production units must conduct conformity assessment according to the conformity assessment method prescribed in Point a, Clause 1, Article 5 of Circular 28/2012/TT-BKHCN of the Ministry of Science and Technology”. And this method is Method 1: Testing typical samples! With this method, conformity only ensures one side of conformity with technical characteristics, and still lacks conformity with management requirements to ensure the sustainable maintenance of those characteristics.
Even in sample testing, violating (exceeding the allowable limit) 1 or some indicators in one, or a certain number of tests, is not necessarily considered a violation. That is, there are still no clear regulations on the criteria for non-conformity (violation).
Circular 41 also does not clearly stipulate how the water supply unit must take corrective action (repair, investigate the cause, prevent recurrence, report to authorities, communicate to the community) when a violation occurs.
Water quality standards are the same for all water supply units, regardless of scale, because they are related to human health, so it is possible to expand the indicators that are likely to occur locally. However, it is necessary to provide a complete and clear "criteria for conformity", with different requirements that can be satisfied, on the basis of balancing risk reduction and cost. With the appropriate criteria, water supply units of different scales can choose to apply flexibly, but still ensure that they meet the same quality standards.
All points have been