THE spate of deaths due to consumption of contaminated water in Bhagirathpura in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, continues unabated. The death toll has reached 27, with two more deaths reported. News has also emerged from Dr. Ambedkar Nagar -- the headquarters of Mhow tehsil in Indore district -- that jaundice has been spreading rapidly there due to the mixing of the borewell water line with the sewage line. So far, 30 people have fallen ill there. Of them, 24 are children. Ten of them had to be hospitalised.

People suffering due to water contamination is not limited to Indore city or Indore district alone, the entire state faces the same condition. Under pressure, the BJP-led state government had to acknowledge the situation. Now the administration is in panic. The BJP government is issuing repeated instructions to avoid embarrassment. But reports that are coming out clearly show that until now, the people of the state were being given poison in the name of water.

Madhya Pradesh has a total of 413 urban local bodies. In the last few days, 45,749 samples of drinking water from these areas were sent for testing, and samples from 349 locations failed the test. This means that contaminated water was being supplied there. The cities whose samples failed include Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Rewa, Chhindwara, and Sagar. Between January 10 and January 18, as many as 5,219 complaints of leakage were received from across the state. In these places, contaminated water was being supplied due to the mixing of the sewer line with the drinking water line. Now it is being claimed that 4,893 of these complaints have been resolved. During the water grievance hearing on January 14 alone, 1,851 complaints of contaminated water were received from all 10 divisions of the state. It is now being claimed that 1,732 of these complaints have been resolved. There are also reports of cleaning being carried out in overhead tanks of various municipalities. However, according to government figures, only 2,903 out of 3,298 overhead tanks have been cleaned so far. Water is supplied from 7,755 tube wells in municipal areas. So far, water testing has revealed that water from 58 per cent of these tube wells is not fit for consumption. This means that water from 4,498 out of 7,755 tube wells is contaminated.

When so many cases of contaminated water are coming to light, the question arises whether there is proper and adequate management of contaminated water testing in the state. Even the mainstream media is ridiculing the way the testing is currently being done. Typically, water is being examined by holding it in a glass and shining a mobile phone flashlight through it. In this examination, germs are visible floating in the water. Now imagine what would happen if this test were conducted in a laboratory with adequate chemicals? Another aspect is that there are no trained technicians for the testing. Chemists or lab assistants should be deployed for water testing, but the government is playing with the lives of the people of the state by entrusting the responsibility of testing to daily wage workers hired for 29 days without any training. The kit given to the testing team contains information on how to conduct 11 types of tests. However, due to lack of experience and training, the testing team only knows how to perform two types of tests: Either they put water in a jar and shine a mobile phone flashlight through it from below, or they add chemicals to the water and estimate the chlorine content based on the change in the water's colour.

What could be a bigger joke on the health of the people of the state than this? The fundamental question is that the mixing of water and sewage lines did not happen suddenly. Corruption at every level is at the root of this problem. A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report presented in the Legislative Assembly in March 2025 made many observations in this regard. One of these observations stated that the municipal bodies have not used sulfur-resistant RCC pipes (NP2, NP3 and NP4). The failure to use sulfur-resistant pipes can lead to rapid corrosion, potentially shortening the lifespan of the entire project. This is particularly concerning given that the government had mandated the use of sulfide-resistant pipes in the Amrit 2.0 project. Was this omission accidental? It appears that public safety has been compromised for the sake of corruption and kickbacks. The details provided in the CAG report indicate that the government’s negligence was criminal. Of the 34 municipal bodies tested regarding septage cleaning and management, 33 had neither developed any training programme for it nor prepared a standard operating procedure. The Bhopal Municipal Corporation did not even provide any information in this regard.

Thirty-three municipal bodies admitted that no training had been provided to the workers engaged in septage management during the last five years, nor had any standard operating procedure been prepared. These municipal bodies include Gwalior, Jabalpur, Morena, Ratlam, Sagar, and Vidisha. The report, while mentioning the reasons for drinking water contamination, states that in almost every city, due to the lack of sewage systems in modern laundries, hospitals, hostels, boarding schools and colleges, nursing homes and medical quarters, restaurants, day schools, colleges, offices, factories, cinemas and music venues, as well as railway stations and bus stands, all the sewage is mixing with and contaminating water sources. Six municipal bodies do not even have a mechanism to address complaints related to contaminated water.

In Indore, even after a complaint of contaminated water in Bhagirathpura, the file for replacing the water line lay on the mayor's table for six months. And this delay was solely due to corruption. There are 11 municipal bodies, 10 of which are municipal corporations, where the sewage project is facing continuous delays. The sole reason for the delay is corruption. What does all this indicate? It shows that the BJP's motive is not motherland, but merely kickbacks, and for that, they can even put the lives of ordinary citizens at stake. The people of Bhagirathpura, as well as other cities in the state, have become victims of this greed of the BJP.