BHOPAL: Four years after being declared India’s first Water Plus city, the country’s cleanest city, Indore, is witnessing deaths due to contaminated water supply in the congested Bhagirathpura locality. Indore district collector Shivam Verma confirmed four deaths, while mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava said seven deaths occurred due to diarrhoea caused prima facie by contaminated water.
Unconfirmed reports put the toll at eight to 10. “While four deaths are confirmed, around 149 patients are currently admitted at 27 different hospitals in the city,” Verma said. The affected area falls under Indore-1, the assembly constituency of the state urban administration and housing minister Kailash Vijayvargiya.
Back in 2021, Indore earned the Water Plus tag in the Swachh Survekshan for managing water, treating 100% of wastewater, preventing untreated sewage from entering rivers, and reusing treated water. Now the city, cleanest for seven years in a row, is in the news for an acute diarrhoeal outbreak. Doctors saved 62-year-old Kaushalya Kushwah after four critical days. Her husband, Bansilal Kushwah, said, “My wife returned from the jaws of death… but my neighbour, 70-year-old railway employee Nandlal Pal, wasn’t fortunate.” Pal died two days after admission.
Unconfirmed reports said deaths between December 28 and 30 included Nandlal Pal, Manjula, Urmila Yadav, Uma Kori, Tara Bai Kori, Seema Prajapat, Gomti Rawat and Santosh Bigolia.
A three-member probe panel was formed. The CM, who reached Indore on Wednesday evening to check on patients, has announced `2 lakh compensation. Officials were suspended, tankers were deployed, samples were collected, and residents were advised to drink boiled water. Health teams surveyed over 2,700 houses.
Authorities said the government will bear the entire cost of treatment in private hospitals for patients. During the ongoing survey of Bhagirathpura area, a point where the drainage/sewer line was running over the water pipeline under the toilet built near a police outpost has been detected.