Himachal Chief Secretary P Mitra on Monday chaired the high-level meeting of various departments to take stock of the status of cases of jaundice in Shimla and Solan towns and measures being taken by the departments concerned to tackle the situation.
Given the alarming situation of jaundice and negligence, an Executive engineer of Irrigation and Public Health department, Vinod Kumar was arrested by the SIT on Sunday, taking the total number of persons arrested in connection with alleged contamination of water that resulted in spread of jaundice in Shimla to five.
In the meeting on Monday, the chief secretary said the downward trend in Jaundice cases had been reported in past few days in both the towns. All the line departments were taking necessary measures and efforts were on to ensure that untreated water was not consumed by the people.
Mitra said most of the cases being reported were of Hepatitis-’E’ for which free testing facility was being provided in Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla besides other all required treatment facilities.
He advised all the government and the private schools managements of both the towns to clean their water tanks and also to change the drinking water before the opening of the schools.
The Chief Secretary said the Municipal Corporation, Shimla had also taken effective steps as per the directions issued including sealing 45 Bawris and hand pumps in Shimla town where the water was suspected to be infected. He directed the authorities to install pubic taps at such places so that people could get drinking water.
He said the water of the Solan treatment plant was sent for testing and it had been found safe for drinking. However, the Health department had been asked for sampling on regular basis so that quality of the water could be maintained at any cost.
The Chief Secretary said MC, Shimla had taken steps to check the leakages in the main water supply line from Craignano to Dhalli and Dhalli to Ridge and beyond reach. MC, Shimla had also constituted a team to check the leakage of sewer lines. The team had served 1176 notices to the defaulters in 10 wards so far besides disconnecting 77 connections.
Similarly, TCP and Rural Development Departments had also constituted teams to ensure proper sanitation. The TCP department served 52 notices to the defaulters including two hoteliers and had asked them to follow proper sanitation measures. He said that Panchayati Raj Department had also constituted inter-block teams and was organising awareness camps to sensitize the people about adopting complete sanitation.
Besides the Executive Engineer, Vinod Kumar, the SIT had earlier arrested a Junior Engineer and Supervisor of the Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) on January 21, the contractor on January 29 and the Sub-Divisional Engineer of Irrigation and Public Health department.
Vinod Kumar was incharge of the STP and also lifting of water from the source at Ashwani Khud and mainly responsible for ensuring supply of safe water to the residents.
The special Investigation team (SIT) was constituted by Shimla police to probe the causes for jaundice outbreak in Shimla town and fix the responsibility for the alleged lapses.
The SIT visited the Ashwani Khud water supply pumping site and STP to gather more facts and head of SIT DSP, Dhawal said that that services of experts would be requisitioned for investigating the technical aspects and a consultant would be engaged soon.
The spurt in jaundice cases in Shimla town had caused an alarm and rattled the official machinery and the supply of water from Ashwani Khud water supply scheme was stopped on January 2 after a team of Shimla Municipal Corporation visited the site and found that the water had been contaminated due to mixing of sewage.
The investigations have gained pace after the arrest of the contractor and the SIT is looking into the role of the officials who overlooked supply of contaminated water to residents, causing outbreak of Jaundice in epidemic form.
So far about 1200 cases of jaundice have been reported.