What contaminated Indore’s water? Toilet still top possibility but engineers spread out to look for other culprits

Following a high-level meeting with CM Mohan Yadav on Friday, MC officials across Madhya Pradesh have been directed to ensure "proper maintenance of water supply systems, continuous monitoring of water quality, and timely detection of pipeline leakages”.

In the narrow, congested lanes of Bhagirathpura, where at least 10 people died after drinking contaminated water,teams of engineers are racing against time and against the unsettling possibility that they still don’t fully understand how contamination entered Indore city’s supply.

Following a high-level meeting with Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Friday, and under mounting pressure from opposition attacks and rare internal criticism from the BJP, municipal corporation officials across Madhya Pradesh have been directed to ensure “proper maintenance of water supply systems, continuous monitoring of water quality, and timely detection of pipeline leakages”.

In Indore, this directive has translated into a citywide hunt for contamination sources involving 200 personnel, from sub-engineers to area engineers, from health officials to staff from multiple Sub-Divisional Magistrate offices, fanning out across the city.

The initial investigation seemed straightforward. The culprit: A small police chowki constructed directly over a main water line in Bhagirathpura. The bathroom had no proper septic tank, so contaminated waste accumulated in a pit, which ostensibly led to the spread of contamination through a broken water pipe.

“We earlier thought the contamination was from the toilet made at the local police chowki, where the infection spread. Even though that’s still a factor, we are looking beyond that source,” said a senior area engineer overseeing the expanded investigation. There are a total of 105 water tankers in the city which supply water to residents,” the engineer explained. “If the contamination was widespread, it would have been detected in water tankers across the city, but it has only been seen in Bhagirathpura. So there is a need for a deep investigation.Municipal authorities are now undertaking a heavy metal test on this pipeline for further investigation.

“It takes a team 20 minutes to clean a chamber, which is an access point to the sewerage system in the city, looking for signs of leakage,” said a sub-engineer deployed to the Bhagirathpura area. There is a target to cover a total of 1,000 chambers, and it will take some time for the team to complete. But complications are everywhere in Bhagirathpura, engineers overseeing operations said.The neighbourhood is a maze of lanes barely 8 feet wide, where vehicles cannot pass, and equipment must be carried by hand.

What has made things difficult is also tracing chamber work undertaken by private vendors in an area with narrow roads, the sub-engineer said. We are also digging up broadband lines… We are not leaving out any possibility.

While teams work underground, another contingent is focused on the city’s 105 water tankers, key to the water supply.We are testing the water in all these water tankers for chlorine levels and bacterial infection,” said an assistant engineer assigned to the tanker inspection detail.

Rather than inspecting every pipe in the city, an impossible task given the timeline and resources, the expanded investigation is using a risk-based approach to identify the most vulnerable areas.Areas with dense populations and pipelines older than 20 years are to be identified, along with pipelines that run close to or below drains and sewer lines,” explained a municipal engineer coordinating the mapping effort.

According to the health department data, a total of 310 patients had been admitted to hospitals since December 24. Of those, 203 remained hospitalised, 107 had been discharged, and 25 are in intensive care units.The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court had on Friday ordered water tankers to be sent to the area after complaints were raised that the vehicles were not arriving near the localities.

The municipal corporation had designated 4 additional water tankers to bolster the 30 water tankers already dispatched in the area.On Saturday, a group of women carrying bottles and buckets lined up to collect drinking water, some still complaining about the quality, others first heading to local stores to buy larger bottles. Similar scenes played out in several neighbourhoods.Indore Collector Shivam Verma drank from a tanker before water could be distributed to residents, a signal that all is well.