ROURKELA: Even as the Sundargarh district administration is refraining from declaring the reason behind diarrhoea outbreak across the Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) area, the BJP attributed water contamination to have led to the dire situation and sought action against all concerned alleging criminal negligence.
BJP state spokesperson Dhiren Senapati on Monday claimed around 30 persons died and above 3,000 suffered from the outbreak, adding, for the past three months, unsafe and turbid water was getting supplied at different slum pockets of the city leading to the crisis.
“Now also, at several places, leaked pipelines are running across drains and not yet repaired posing threat of contamination,” he said.
Drinking water pipelines have been laid below drains and sewerage lines and water is getting supplied with pipes leaking at many places, Senapati alleged, adding, a private player has been entrusted to implement the Drink From Tap initiative for about Rs 85.91 crore.
“Inferior quality water is getting supplied to the residents of RMC limits,” he further alleged.
Collection of 1,500 water samples from diarrhoea hotspots indicates compromise of water quality and deflates claims of WATCO in providing quality drinking water in compliance of ISO 10500 standard, Senapati pointed out.
“All slum households still lack individual latrines and 65 community toilets are not fully functional, while unattended leakages of drinking water pipes through open drains cite the failure of the government,” he pointed out.
Senapati further stated that Rourkela Government Hospital has vacancies of about 60 doctors and lacks facilities for proper pathological tests.
He also alleged the overall negligence of the government, elected representative of Rourkela, RMC Commissioner and WATCO are responsible for the outbreak and demanded action.
RMC had declared a total of nine deaths from diarrhoea.
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