Amid deaths, diseases, water leaves a mark in Fazilka

Jasmine Singh in Fazilka

Surinder and Palak Kaur, both fifth grade students from Government Primay School Alamgarh, often end up becoming the butt of jokes in the school for their grey hair. A few miles from Alamgarh, Gunjan (5) and Vishal (8) are suffering from liver failure. Their father Din Dayal, an electrician, is clueless how he would arrange money for the kids’ liver transplant. 

Physical disorders among children appear unusually high in the area. Desperate, clueless villagers point at the collapsed water supply — the RO (reverse osmosis) system doesn’t work and government-supplied water is murky despite repeated claims of “strict supervision.” And the shocking part is in almost all villages, you may find at least half-a-dozen mentally retarded children. “We blame the drinking water,” says Tarun Kumar, a villager in Alamgarh. His father recently underwent a liver transplant. “If you have so much of dirt in the water, you can imagine what can happen. Aithey chotey chotey bachain de waal safeed ne, oh mental hoi ja rahey ne (our children have grey hair; they suffer mental disability.”

Sham Sunder, a government school teacher, says the number of children with mental disability has risen from 2009. “We hold special classes for them. At present we have 10-14 such children,” says Sunder. 

Earlier reports of PAU, PGI and GNDU had indicated a rise in toxicity in the groundwater in the Malwa region. A recent study by Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, has found 3.18 per cent rise in number of such patients in the area. The study analyzed profiles of skin cancer patients from Dec 1, 2013, to Nov 30, 2014. The study, whose report was submitted in June 2016, found that 88 per cent patients were from rural areas and 92 per cent were into agriculture.

Renowned epidemiologist Dr Amar Singh Azad, says the rise in the number of autistic children at schools is an indicator that something is seriously wrong with the basic consumables. “If the villagers tell you about the unhygienic drinking water, then it has to be scientifically proved and preventive measures taken immediately. We need to know what exactly led to over a dozen deaths caused by liver failure in Kiker Khera village in a span of three years. Everybody knows how bad the drinking water quality of that village is,” says Dr Azad.

He refers to a water sample report of the independent scientific lab of the Environment Quality Monitoring Group, Uttarakhand. “The report shows a rise in the total dissolved solids (TDS) level in villages of Fazilka and Abohar. For government agencies, it is time for some real action,” he said.