In a submission to the High Court, the Madhya Pradesh government said 15 deaths have been directly attributed to the Indore water contamination tragedy, but that the families of 23 people who died in that period would be compensated.
After the state government and the Indore Municipal Corporation submitted their status reports before the Bench of Justices Vijay Kumar Shukla and Alok Awasthi, Chief Secretary Anurag Jain told the cout on Thursday that while initially some deaths were attributed to comorbidities, “looking at the gravity of the situation and the public discourse, we took a decision that all deaths, even if they could not be attributed to the contamination, but which took place around the time period, would be compensated.”
Jain also told the court that authorities managed to track the source of contamination. “All the contaminated sources have been stopped. Fifty-one tubewells have been found to be contaminated — all of them have been taken out of use. Unless the water quality gets back to normal, no such source will be used,” Jain said.
In its status report, the Madhya Pradesh government detailed the medical response based on hospital admissions gathered from various districts. It said, “440 patients were reported across various hospitals, eight patients were admitted to the ICU, 411 patients were discharged after treatment, [and there are] 21 active patients across the hospital.”
The Indore Municipal Corporation informed the court that repair work on the underground Narmada and tubewell pipeline network is underway in the affected Bhagirathpura area of Indore. According to its report, pipelines have been repaired at 30 locations.
Pipelines connecting overhead tanks to household connections are being replaced as part of the exercise, along with sewer lines running through the locality. The civic body said that approximately 200 metres of water pipeline and 200 metres of drainage pipeline have been replaced so far. It added that care is being taken to ensure sewer lines are laid below water lines to prevent contamination.
The corporation also submitted that it has issued a corrigendum for the installation of a Residual Chlorine Analyser equipped with an automatic cleaning sensor and PLC panel, which will be integrated with the existing SCADA system. The tentative tender opening date has been set for January 16. Once operational, the system will provide real-time data on chlorine residue levels in supplied water, the status report said.
