Second week of 2026. Greater than 20 water tankers are parked on the highway subsequent to Laxmibai Nagar railway station in Indore. They’re ready in line to be crammed with ingesting water from truck tankers. As quickly because the tanker related to the tractor is full, it would tour round Bagiraspura, the place the station is situated.
Subsequent to the highway is a vacant lot the place employees are welding massive steel pipes. On the opposite facet of the sector, a bunch of boys play cricket whereas a machine the scale of a bulldozer strains pipes.
In Bhagiraspura, roads are being dug up. There are barricades in nearly each lane and “work in progress” indicators across the pits. Employees are putting in drainage pipes exterior a authorities clinic. Some are mapping the lanes of water pipelines.
Work is underway to put new drainage pipes in Bhagiraspura space of Indore, Madhya Pradesh. |Picture courtesy of AM Faruqui
Authorities volunteers are patrolling with loudspeakers, advising folks to not drink pipeline water equipped by the Indore Municipal Company (IMC). The water is turned off besides throughout water provide assessments. Residents, largely girls, collect round water vehicles and acquire water into buckets and kitchen containers. Within the background, slogans selling cleanliness are painted on the partitions of the world, boasting that Indore is the cleanest metropolis in India.
Because the world celebrated Christmas, within the week between Christmas and New Yr’s, the migrant and gig employee neighborhood of Bagiraspura battled a diarrhea outbreak that affected 3,000 folks. Of those, eight folks died and 429 folks had been admitted to 41 hospitals throughout Indore, the Madhya Pradesh authorities stated. Information present that compensation of Rs 200,000 every was paid to 18 households and introduced to the kinfolk of the deceased. A medical fee was set as much as study the medical data of different individuals who allegedly died on account of air pollution issues.
However there may be extra to this tragedy than the truth that Indore has been declared India’s cleanest metropolis by the central authorities monitoring system Swachh Surbekshan for eight years.
The deaths on account of diarrhea had been brought on by contaminated ingesting water from the Narmada river, which is taken into account a holy website. Water is piped from about 80 kilometers away, and in some areas, equivalent to Bhagiraspura, the pipes run near dilapidated sewer pipes. Put up-mortem water testing reviews confirmed that the water in 35 of 80 wells within the space was contaminated with a poisonous combination of greater than 25 kinds of micro organism, viruses and parasites, indicating that the groundwater was additionally contaminated. The federal government has not recognized the trigger or supply of the air pollution.
That is the second tragedy in six months that has tarnished Indore’s model as a clear metropolis. In August 2025, two infants died from rat bites within the neonatal ICU of Maharaja Yashwant Rao (MY) Hospital, the biggest authorities well being facility in Madhya Pradesh.
Whereas a lot of Indore boasts clear, large roads and rising infrastructure, the 2 tragedies have uncovered the blind spots beneath. These present that fundamental hygiene and fundamental requirements stay out of attain for many individuals.
Indore is the biggest metropolis and industrial heart of Madhya Pradesh. Over the previous decade, it has attracted a number of corporations, together with IT large Infosys and actual property large Lodha Group. The town has an estimated inhabitants of three million folks, which is rising as a result of inflow of migrant employees from inside and out of doors the state.
livid household
On the Marathi Mohalla in Bhagiraspura, amidst the noisy vegetable market, Sunil Sahu’s house is crammed with an uneasy silence. Sahu, a 35-year-old courier, misplaced his six-month-old son Abhiyan within the early hours of December twenty eighth. The household had been including pipeline water to the boy’s milk for a number of days.
“On the twenty sixth, he turned unwell and began vomiting, so we took him to a pediatric hospital. The physician prescribed drugs and he got here again. He gave the impression to be recovering and was wonderful for a day. However round 4 a.m. on the twenty eighth, his situation worsened,” Sahu stated, sitting on an previous couch in her two-room home. His household instantly rushed him to a kids’s hospital within the metropolis on his bicycle, however medical doctors pronounced him lifeless.
Sahu opened his cellphone and displayed a number of photographs of his son. He has an 11-year-old daughter and says his son was born after greater than 10 years and far prayer. “My household is destroyed and my spouse is traumatized. I simply hope that the errors made by the federal government won’t be repeated. What occurred to us ought to by no means occur to anybody,” he added.
On each footpath in Bhagiraspura, persons are falling in poor health. Some persons are nonetheless within the hospital, some have simply been discharged from the hospital, and a few are recovering at residence by taking remedy.
In Pahalwan Gali, Argram Yadav, 68, rigorously descends the steps of his partially dilapidated residence. Whereas he’s nonetheless recovering from diarrhea, his spouse Urmila Yadav (63) didn’t survive and handed away on December 28.
His son Sanjay Yadav stated his total household had fallen in poor health as a result of water. “A day after my mom’s cremation, my 11-month-old son fell in poor health. He began vomiting repeatedly and have become so weak that he couldn’t sit up. He was admitted to Chacha Nehru Youngsters’s Hospital for 4 days. Fortunately, he’s higher now,” he says.
Sanjay stated his mom, who labored as a helper in school, helped run the home. “Even on the day she fell in poor health, she had simply come residence from college. She would additionally make containers of sweets to earn some pocket cash,” Sanjay added.
In contrast to Sahu, Yadav is indignant with the federal government. “For years, we used water by simply draining two or three buckets of water when the water got here on,” he says. Faucet water is barely out there for about 1 hour every day. “From mid-December, we began noticing a wierd odor within the water. This time we do not know what was within the water that made the entire space sick,” he says.
Regardless of the state authorities promising to refund the cash residents spent on remedy at non-public hospitals, Algram continues to be ready for the Rs 40,000 he needed to borrow for his spouse’s remedy by mortgaging his spouse’s jewellery.
filth delay
The outbreak got here to the eye of authorities on December 29, however each non-public and authorities hospitals started seeing an inflow of sufferers from December 24.
Madhav Prasad Hasani, Indore’s chief medical well being officer, stated he was alerted by medical doctors at a authorities clinic in Bhagiraspura on December 29 after greater than 300 instances had been reported in lower than a day.
“As quickly as we obtained the knowledge, we alerted all close by hospitals and deployed extra workers. Sufferers had been admitted to 5 authorities hospitals and 36 non-public hospitals. Further nursing workers was offered in all places and round eight ambulances had been deployed within the space,” Dr Hassani stated.
Dr RK Jha, medical director of Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences, stated whereas all age teams had been affected by the air pollution, it had a extreme affect on the aged and people with pre-existing situations. “It may be tough for older folks to recuperate from extreme dehydration,” he says. A lot of the deaths had been over 60 years previous. He additionally stated repeated publicity to unsanitary situations can result in well being issues that accumulate over time. “Current contamination could have exacerbated the issue,” he added.
Native residents and IMC officers say Bhagiraspura is an unplanned settlement. The realm’s predominant roads are about 15 ft large, and the sewer strains and predominant water provide pipelines are about 8 ft aside, however IMC’s assistant engineer (AE) for water provide stated the within lanes are “so slender that two units of pipes overlap, simply 2 to three ft aside, and the sewer community rests on high of the water pipelines.”
Whereas the prevailing water provide community within the space was laid between 1997 and 2000 utilizing iron pipes and Narmada water provide began just a few years later, the historical past of the sewerage community dates again to earlier than the Nineties, officers stated. They warn that there are a number of different Bhagirasupuras in Indore.
A senior IMC official additionally admitted that there have been delays in restore and substitute work throughout the 10-kilometre community. Residents of Bhagiraspura stated they’ve been elevating the difficulty of sewage water with their native representatives and thru IMC’s 311 cellular utility for over a yr.
In a letter dated February 28, 2024, for Ward 11, which falls beneath Bhagiraspura Municipality, Kamal Vaghela addressed Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargav, saying that residents have been hospitalized with typhoid fever, jaundice and fever on account of contaminated water. Vaghela stated that after the criticism, Bhargav inspected the world and issued directions for restore and substitute work. Nevertheless, Mr Vaghela is at the moment going through intense criticism from native residents who declare he didn’t act on their complaints.
“About 20% of the primary water provide pipes have been changed or repaired, however work to switch your complete community, together with the distribution pipes, couldn’t start,” stated an AE who requested anonymity.
A venture to switch your complete water provide community in Bhagiraspura was accredited, however no firm was contracted till an individual died. The bid was accredited shortly and the project was made on December thirty first.
Whereas work is underway to put in the brand new pipeline, metropolis officers are additionally working to hint and restore leaks. They’re chlorinating varied provide factors, together with wells. “Water provide can be resumed solely in spite of everything leaks are traced and repaired and a number of assessments are performed to make sure that no contamination stays,” stated Indore Divisional Commissioner Sudam Khade, who’s main the federal government’s efforts.
Newly appointed IMC chief Kshithi Singhal stated over 400 non-public wells have been chlorinated and 87 wells have been disconnected.
A bathroom on the native police station constructed over the primary water provide line, which was initially suspected to be the supply of the contamination, was additionally demolished. The bathroom may very well be used with out a septic tank.
Totally different groups from authorities companies try to analyze a number of features, together with the supply of the contamination, which isn’t but clear.
Many individuals in Indore are actually afraid of water flowing by way of company pipelines. They’re shopping for water and putting in RO tools.
With public water provides reduce off, residents have resorted to buying water for ingesting and cooking from non-public suppliers. |Picture courtesy of AM Faruqui
energy pum ring
The primary finger after his loss of life was pointed on the BJP-ruled IMC. As well as, Chief Secretary Rohit Sisoniya, who’s answerable for eight departments, and Sanjeev Shrivastava, chief engineer, public well being engineering division, have additionally been suspended. Commissioner Dileep Yadav has been transferred from Indore.
Indore is the hometown of Madhya Pradesh’s City Growth and Housing Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav had been answerable for the district since August 2024. Bhagiraspura falls beneath Mr. Vijayvargiya’s Indore 1 meeting constituency.
“The rivalry between the 2 leaders is not any secret. The CM is making an attempt to say supremacy over your complete state, however Kailash is unwilling to surrender his stronghold at any value. There are cases when the social gathering excessive command has needed to intervene in disagreements between the 2 leaders,” stated a senior BJP chief in Bhopal. He added that the majority of Indore’s regionally elected leaders are loyal to Vijayvargiya, however senior officers are posted from Bhopal. He says Indore is struggling whereas the 2 combat. The delays are a part of the disruption to residents’ day by day lives, a councilor from a neighboring ward says. He claims to have moved from the Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Get together forward of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to get approval for the venture.
“After July 2022 (when civic physique elections had been held), once I joined the Bharatiya Janata Get together, solely works value round Rs 35 million had been accredited in my space. Since 2024, works value round Rs 18 million have been demolished in my ward. Nevertheless, a number of main initiatives are nonetheless pending as officers don’t hearken to us or communicate to us correctly,” the lawmaker says. His reference to officers suggests he was appointed by the prime minister.
Nevertheless, Mayor Bhargav, who can be an elected councilor, denies any main combat. “It is a very tragic incident for Indore and we take full duty for this. If there are any small points or communication gaps between us, we’ll work collectively to beat them, as our precedence is to rectify the shortcomings and be certain that such tragedies are by no means repeated within the metropolis,” he says.
However Indore residents like Mukesh Maurya are fed up with behind-the-scenes politics. Maurya’s 72-year-old father reportedly suffered cardiac arrest on account of issues from the diarrhea that has affected many individuals. “My father barely survived. On December 29, nobody would admit him to the hospital, so I ran from hospital to hospital,” he says.
He feels the larger image is completely different than what he feels. “As a nation, we work arduous and pay taxes on nearly all the things, however these politicians cannot even present us with clear ingesting water. Are we asking for a lot right here?”
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
