Amid diarrhoea surge: 35 illegal water connections snapped, 71 dairies challaned
Mohit Khanna
Patiala, July 18
After 50 cases of diarrhoea were reported from Jhill village and surrounding areas, a Municipal Corporation team detected 35 illegal water connections and issued 71 challans against the polluting dairy units.
After the diarrhoea outbreak, a team of the Patiala civil body carried out an inspection and found 35 illegal water connections, all of which were snapped.
The team, consisting of Municipal Corporation Commissioner Aaditya Dachalwal and other civic body officials, visited diarrhoea hotspots in Jhill village, Udham Singh Nagar, and Aman Bagh Extension. The commissioner said, “We found 40 diarrhoea cases from these areas.”
The commissioner said that during the visit, the team found that sewage water was getting mixed with leaking pipelines and dirty water tanks. They said this may have led to diarrhoea in Jhill village and surrounding areas.
The MC official said 75 water samples from the source (tubewell) were collected, and all cleared the test.
An MC official said some of the underground pipeline may have been punctured, and the use of pumping sets increased the water pressure, which led to the sewerage water being sucked out, ultimately leading to the spread of diarrhoea.
The commissioner said the team checked the water tanks of some of the houses. He said the water storage tanks were found to be contaminated. The civic body also issued challans to 71 polluting dairy units.
President of the district unit of the BJP (Urban), Sanjiv Sharma Bittu, said reckless drilling of roads for laying fibre optic cables was the main reason behind frequent diarrhoea outbreaks. He said about 50 cases were reported from Patran, 47 from Jhill village, and five from Mohindra Colony of the district. They said in all the cases, the mixing of sewage with the drinking water was found to be the reason behind the outbreak. He said the government neither had the maps and site plans of the sewerage and water lines laid by the PUDA Improvement Trust and Public Health nor did it have sewerage and water maps of the illegal colonies that have been regularised. Bittu said granting such approvals was wrong.
