The Hindu : New Delhi News : Gastro scare looms large over MAMC

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Gastro scare looms large over MAMC

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

Bad quality of drinking water in college hostel

NEW DELHI: Four months of sustained complaints and reams of paperwork later, students at Maulana Azad Medical College, one of the country’s top medical institutions, continue to dodge gastroenteritis and other water-borne diseases with only one of the six samples collected from the college hostel testing “bacteriological fit for drinking”.

Alarmingly, none of the six samples picked up and tested by the Delhi Jal Board showed any presence of chlorine residue, hence opening up the possibility of re-growth of pathogenic bacteria in the distribution system. The Jal Board’s report adds that ground water in the area is saline and hard and if supplied directly without chlorination can cause gastroenteritis and other water-borne diseases.

The students in the hostel have long complained about the bad quality of drinking water supplied to them and had written about it to the administration.

In its reply to the complaints by students and subsequently the college administration, the Jal Board maintained that “the Board supplies water in bulk to the area and it is the Public Works Department that maintains the internal distribution system, where they mix ground water of four-five tube-wells on the college campus with the filtered water supplied by the DJB.

The responsibility of the DJB finishes at the service connected to the underground tank with regard to the quality of water being supplied. Quality of this water -- supplied by the DJB -- on checking is found okay and thereafter mixed water is pumped into overhead tank and supplied to the college campus.”

The Jal Board had collected six water samples from the college in June from different locations and found that the level of chlorine in all the six samples was nil, indicating that the tube-well water or that supplied from the underground tank had not been chlorinated. It was found that tube-wells don’t have chlorination system and the hypochlorite solution that the PWD officials add to the underground tank, was not being done.

For its part, the college administration has maintained that to ensure that students have clean drinking water they have installed reverse osmosis water purifiers.

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