Residents of Sector 8 at Charkop in Kandivali had a bad Deepavali with contaminated drinking water causing water-borne diseases. People complained of fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach infections, and a few had to be hospitalised.
‘Harrowing experience’
The problem, which started on November 6, continues till date with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) still working to detect the fault. Tejal Nair’s daughter, who is in Class IX, has been vomiting since Wednesday morning. She later developed fever and is now under medication for stomach infection. “It’s a harrowing experience to even wash vessels since the water stinks. I found green deposits even in boiled water,” she says.
Bharat Chaudhary, a shop owner from the same complex, has been hospitalised and two of his workers are now complaining of stomach ache. Chief co-ordinator of the Charkop Sector 8 Vikas Samiti, Mili Shetty, claimed that 21 towers and 40 cluster societies in the area were affected.
About 30 residents, mainly children of Sai Siddhi Society alone, are down with water-related health problems like vomiting and stomach infection. “We have shut our BMC water supply for now and are buying tanker water, paying BMC-approved water suppliers ₹3000 for 10,000 litres. With so many people falling sick in our society and the number increasing by the day, we don’t want to take any chances,” said committee member Naresh Bounthiyal. The society emptied out the building water tank of BMC water and have now refilled it with tanker water. “Though the water suppliers claim it is potable, we aren’t taking a risk and are asking residents in our society WhatsApp group to buy drinking water,” he said.
Local corporator Sandhya Doshi said, “Right now, we are just flushing out the dirty water from the drinking water pipelines in order to supply clean water. So far, we have not been able to detect the exact point of the leak. We shall be inserting cameras into the pits on Saturday,” said Ashok Ghadge, Assistant Engineer of the Hydraulic Engineering Department of BMC.
“With both drinking and sewage water pipelines running close to each other, we suspect that leakage has led to sewage water seeping into the drinking water line.”
