Cleaning of water tanks eyewash?

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 23

The recovery of remains of the skeleton of a child of a local business family yesterday by the CID from the 12-lakh litre capacity water tank in the posh Keleston locality has exposed the Shimla Municipal Corporation’s (SMC) hollow claims that they cleaned tanks in January and June this year after the jaundice outbreak in the city.

Though Shimla Mayor Sanjay Chauhan has sought report from the municipal engineer on the recovery of the remains of the skeleton from the MC tank, Shimla BJP legislator Suresh Bhardwaj and Kusumpti Congress legislator Anirudh Singh have raised the finger on the cleaning of 24 water tanks being done by MC.

“We have moved a call attention motion in the Vidhan Sabha tomorrow as the cleaning of water tanks by the MC has exposed its hollow claims”, said Bhardwaj. The recovery of the remains from the water tank that supplies water in Keleston and Bharari areas showed that the cleaning of water tanks was eyewash and he sought a probe and action against the erring staff.

Anirudh Singh has also raised questions on the cleaning of water tanks by the MC. He had raised the question in the last state Assembly as to how Rs 15.96 crore was spent on cleaning water tanks of 1,540 government houses and offices in the capital for the last three years till March 2016.

SMC engineers claimed that they had cleaned not only the Keleston tank in January and June 2016, but also 23 other tanks after the jaundice outbreak.

“The tanks were emptied, then were washed by chlorinated water,” the staff claimed. “It is not clear how the skeleton was recovered, but we have sought report from the municipal engineer,” said Chauhan.