Residents fall ill, water contamination suspected

Members of at least 100 households of The View, a residential society in Sector 37 D’s Ramprastha City, fell ill over the last three days, citing contamination of drinking water

Members of at least 100 households of The View, a residential society in Sector 37 D’s Ramprastha City, fell ill over the last three days, citing contamination of drinking water.

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Residents said that the problems started surfacing on Friday, as members of a few families reported nausea and diarrhoea, and the situation worsened on Saturday as more residents reported health illnesses.

Neeraj Chauhan, a resident of the condominium said that initially, residents thought that this problem was caused due to change of weather, but when over half of the residents fell ill, the alarm bells started ringing. “My children, wife and I suffered these symptoms and had to take leave from office. Most of the residents are suffering due to contamination of water inside the colony,” said Chauhan.

Residents said that the instances of vomiting and other illnesses reduced on Sunday after the water was drained from the tank and fresh water filled in them. “We strongly suspect that water supplied in the last three days was contaminated and the samples must be tested. Such an incident should not get repeated,” said Chauhan.

Officials of the maintenance agency of the condominium said that water was supplied by the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), but that other societies in the area did not report any such issue.

“We have got the tanks cleaned and checked the entire supply system but have not found any leakage which could have cause contamination. On Monday, these tanks will be cleaned again and the treated water supplied to flushing systems will also.be drained. For the next few days we will use only freshwater, to find out the problem,” said Sanjay Chaudhary, general manager of Aero Inframart Pvt Ltd, the maintenance agency.

Officials of the GMDA ruled out any problem at their end.

Pardeep Kumar, chief engineer of infrastructure-II division of GMDA, said, “It is an internal matter of the society, our supply is completely fine and disinfected. They have a sewage treatment plant installed inside the compound, from where water has been supplied for flushing and other purposes using dual pipe system. We do not know whether the society does regular maintenance or not, but our water supply is as per standards.”

Members of the residents’ welfare association said that they strongly suspect that there was contamination of water either due to leakage in the pipelines. “The water in the tanks had too much chlorine and this is beyond the amount that is used by the supplying agency. We have asked the maintenance agency to get water samples tested,” said a senior member of the RWA, wishing anonymity.