Ahmedabad enters 2000 with death, disease

Ahmedabad enters 2000 with death, disease
HIMANSHU KAUSHIK AND SACHIN SHARMA

AHMEDABAD, JAN 4: This city, the heart of one of the country's most richest states, woke up to welcome the new millennium with a raging epidemic of gastroenteritis and cholera. So far, it has claimed two lives but the area affected is spread across five municipal wards, home to over 20,000 people.

What's made it difficult for the civic authorities to hide is the fact that the warning bells didn't suddenly begin to ring. Jamalpur, worst hit this time, was hit by these diseases nine months ago. Two weeks ago, gastro was raging in Rakhial, where one cholera case has been reported this time.

As patients keep trooping in to hospitals, another fact becomes clear: The outbreak is the result of gross civic mismanagement and unplanned growth of the city. And though the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has taken steps to tackle this crisis, there's little to suggest that the disease will not break out again, maybe with more fatalities, sometime, somewhere in the city.

Residents of the affected areas echo thisfeeling. ``The water pipelines have been changed only at a few places. This might not work for long, we just hope that the problem does not occur again,'' says Ghulamgaus Abdulkarim.

The overriding sentiment is one of official callousness. ``Civic officials and elected members made rounds of the area only when all this happened. None of them bothered to help us when dirty water was flowing in the taps; the politicians bother only about their votes'', says Faiz Mohammed Shaikh.AMC officials are quick to reject any wrongdoing on their part. Their pipes, they say, are clean; the problem lies in the pipes laid illegally by residents, who then prevent civic officials from inspecting them. Mayor Malini Atit says these pipes are old and corroded and often develop leaks.

However, when The Indian Express visited the worst-hit Jamalpur area yesterday to see the replacement of water pipelines, they saw several of the main pipes for drinking water clogged with sewage, leaving little space for water to flow. Onewoman, who declined to be named, demonstrated the problem by putting a PVC pipe in the main drinking line. Out came black, stinking water.

Experts say the problem originates from congestion, poor engineering norms and poor quality of drainage and drinking-water pipelines. In the walled city, where the worst-affected areas are located, the problem is compounded by the fact that civic land has been encroached on by illegal extension of residential and commercial premises, making changes in drainage and drinking-water pipelines a difficult task.

AMC's Standing Committee chairman Dharmendra Shah says that although the corporation has framed a policy for changing pipelines, it is not viable in the walled city. For example, some complaints of clogged drains reveal, on investigation, that the manholes are inside the houses.

N P Patel, a former senior official in the engineering department, says that drinking water pipelines sometimes pass through manholes, touching their walls. So, when labourers clean themanholes, they sometimes damage the water pipes. Municipal Commissioner K Kailashnathan says that a detailed study of the water supply system needs to be done. ``A study in this regard was done earlier by an independent agency but the findings are not sufficient. We need to develop a detailed and computerised geographical information system of the supply lines in the city.''

That doesn't cut much ice with Hazimiyan Imammiyan of Jamalpur. The AMC, he said, had conducted a survey in the area about a year ago to identify faulty connections. ``They had done some digging at that time. We told them about this problem, but they did not show any interest.''