Indore water contamination deaths: NGO claims authorities ignored CAG report

Indore (MP), Jan 3 (PTI) A non-governmental organisation on Saturday claimed that the Indore water contamination deaths are the result of the authorities turning a blind eye to a 2019 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

According to the NGO, the CAG report had made “serious revelations” about irregularities in the drinking water supply system in the country’s cleanest city.

Amulya Nidhi, convenor of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan Madhya Pradesh, said in a press release that the deaths were the outcome of "long-known systemic weaknesses".

Officials have said that six people have died and over 200 were hospitalised following a diarrhoea outbreak caused by contaminated drinking water in the city’s Bhagirathpura, which has a large population from low and middle-income groups.

Citing the CAG report, Nidhi said 5.45 lakh cases of water-borne diseases were reported in Indore and Bhopal between 2013 and 2018, as 5.33 lakh households in Indore and 3.62 lakh households in Bhopal were not being supplied with potable drinking water.

During this period, 4,481 water samples collected from the two cities were found unfit for consumption, he said.

According to the report, complaints related to leakage in water supply pipelines of the municipal corporations in the two cities took between 22 and 108 days to be resolved, Nidhi said.

He said their NGO had written to Union Jal Shakti Minister C R Patil and Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary Anurag Jain, seeking improvements in the state’s drinking water system based on the CAG findings.

While the Indore administration has confirmed six deaths, Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava had said on Friday that he had information about the deaths of 10 patients due to the outbreak.

Local residents have claimed that 16 persons, including a six-month-old child, have died in the incident. PTI HWP LAL NR