One person dies, 65 other residents contract disease at the Panchshil housing society in Worli.
After having braved the water crisis, the 400-odd families of Panchshil housing society in Worli now face another water woe. The society has been getting contaminated water supply for the last one month, which was become a major health hazard for the residents. Many of the buildings occupants have contracted jaundice with some being admitted to hospitals for treatment, and one person even losing her life.
Boonaiya Aitla, 58, a resident of Panchshil, who is suffering from jaundice, lost his daughter-in-law to the disease on February 23. “The problem has been there for the last one month. We have taken all kinds of precautions but still I have lost my daughter-in-law to jaundice,” said Boonaiya.
Another victim, Sandhya Kamble, 42, is worried for her 15-year-old
son — Avirath — who has been bed ridden because of the disease. Similar is the plight of Sanjay Putta, 25, and Suresh Armalla, who have contracted the disease due to consumption of the contaminated water their homes have been receiving.
About 60-65 residents of the society are suffering from jaundice. Ganpat Tambe, secretary of the housing society, has also put up a sign board on the society’s gate asking all the residents to take the necessary precautions.
The society has even lodged a complaint with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) after which the civic body’s medical department team visited the society. However, even after the BMC team distributed chlorine to purify the water, the problem has not ended for the residents. “Even we have cleaned our water tanks twice, but nothing seems to solve the problem. In the morning when the water supply starts, we get contaminated water in our homes every day,” said Tambe.
Even a civic official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed surprise over the happenings in the society. “Normally complaints of water contamination or water borne disease increase during the monsoon season (June and July), but this is strange. This society in Worli is facing water contamination problem at the beginning of the summer season,” the official said.
Local corporator Ashish Chemburkar has done his bit to solve the problem but to no avail. “I organised a health check up camp and we even distributed medicines to the residents, but the disease is not subsiding,” said Chemburkar.
According to sources in the civic body, the BMC has collected 2,143 water samples from across the city in January this year. Of these, 10 samples have the presence of the dreaded E coli bacteria. The BMC repeated the exercise again in February and collected 1,987 water samples, and again found 36 samples that had presence of the same bacteria.
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