The Opposition Congress on Thursday blamed Chhattisgarh Government for its alleged failure to check the spread of jaundice in the State which has claimed at least 17 lives so far mainly in Raipur and Durg towns.
State Congress president Bhupesh Baghel and leader of the Opposition TS Singh Deo said more than half of the State has been in the grip of the disease because the Government failed to provide safe drinking water to the people.
“The lives of people are under threat because of the neglect and ineffectiveness of the urban administration department,’’ the Congress leaders were quoted in a press statement.
They alleged that the matter has become serious especially when the chief minister himself is holding this department and he failed to run his department properly.
“The Government is not in a position to ensure the people of any of the area that they are safe from jaundice. The way disease is being spread, if proper care was not taken, it may spread to other area after Monsoon,’’ they said.
The Congress said the state government must launch a campaign to examine all the hand pumps and ground water sources.
The waste piled up in different public places must be disposed in a scientific method. It further said that the chief minister has washed his hand by sanctioning merely Rs. 19.68 crore for water pipeline in Raipur and Durg after the outbreak of the jaundice.
“His (CM) duty was not over with the sanctioning of the money for replacement of the pipeline in Raipur and Durg, it was not clear how the government is going to solve the problem, in other rural and urban area,’’ they said.
The BJP Government has yet to provide safe drinking water to 81 per cent of the residents of the State.
It was unfortunate that it was Chhattisgarh in the country after Manipur where people get less quantity of drinking water, they alleged.