The ongoing water crisis in Bhopal’s gas tragedy-affected colonies reveals a stark disconnect between official claims and ground realities, posing serious public health risks for thousands of survivors.
Key Highlights:
- 31 out of 42 notified colonies near the Union Carbide plant are facing water contamination, despite BMC’s claims of “pure piped water” supply.
- Residents report broken pipelines, low water pressure, and in some cases, no connections at all, especially in colonies like PhutaMakbara, Shiv Nagar, and Ayub Nagar.
- Due to these failures, residents are compelled to use banned borewell water, contaminated by sewage and industrial waste, particularly near Solar Evaporation Ponds (SEPs).
- The Supreme Court’s monitoring committee is actively inspecting these areas and testing water samples, but interim relief is still lacking.
Health and Infrastructure Concerns:
- Contaminated water—mixing with sewage due to faulty pipelines and poor drainage—is leading to serious health hazards in already vulnerable communities.
- Activists like Rachna Dhingra emphasize that structural upgrades to sewage and drainage systems are urgently needed.
- Survivors’ affidavits describe everyday hardship, with many families buying or fetching water just to avoid falling ill.
Official Response:
- BMC maintains that they have fully complied with Supreme Court directives on piped water supply.
- SC monitoring teams, however, are focused on whether illegal and unsafe groundwater usage continues, indicating ongoing systemic failures.
This situation underscores the long-term neglect of basic rights for Bhopal gas tragedy survivors, even four decades after the disaster.
