Jaundice: JE, SDO of Solan held, get bail

Tribune News Service

Solan, May 17

The Special Investigating Team (SIT), inquiring into the jaundice outbreak case, today arrested a Junior Engineer and an Assistant Engineer of the local Municipal Committee (MC) for negligence in failing to provide safe drinking water to the people of the town.

The duo were, however, bailed out after the token arrest as the FIR has been registered under bailable sections of the IPC.

Police officials, while confirming the news, said the role of the senior officials of the MC was also under scanner as MC was responsible for distributing water to Solan town after obtaining water from the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department.

About 700 cases of jaundice had been detected in Solan from January this year and one death has been reported from Rampur village in the Sultanpur area.

The officials of the SIT were inquiring into various aspects of the case, including the quality of water supplied from the Ashwani Khud Water Supply Scheme, Giri Water Supply Scheme and the working of the Shamti-based Sewage Treatment Plant.

Officials said since jaundice cases had surfaced even after the water supply from the Ashwani Khud had been suspended on January 25, the working of the MC staff had come under the scanner. While pointing towards laxity in ensuring supply of safe water to the town residents, the officials said that they were unable to ensure supply of safe drinking water. A sample of water drawn from a water tank at Saproon had been found contaminated with coliform though its presence is supposed to be nil in water meant for drinking, said an SIT official.

Though efforts were made by the officials of the IPH to ensure safe drinking water to the people after outbreak of the jaundice and more than 100 water tanks were cleaned, the number of jaundice cases had touched about 700 since January.