Children in Haldwani schools exposed to water-borne diseases

Mon, Apr 28 12:50 AM

SCHOOLCHILDREN AND college going students in nearby Haldwani town are badly exposed to a number of lethal waterborne diseases this summer due to the highly contaminated water they are forced to drink everyday in their schools and colleges, officials said. "The problem lies in the contaminated water stored in tanks, which are seldom cleaned", said Dr Harsh Singh Airy, a Health Officer at the Haldwani Municipal Board.

"Nor is the water stored in these tanks ever chlorinated", he added. "Strangely, the water storage tanks are also left unclean even in most of the elite English Medium Schools", said the Health Officer.

Stating that all these startling facts came to light recently during an official inspection of the water storage tanks of around dozen schools and colleges conducted in Haldwani he said the inspection was conducted jointly by the Jal Sansthan and Municipal Board officials. "Most of the water tanks that we inspected were uncovered and their lids were missing", he said adding, besides, each one of these (water tanks) also had a thick layer of stinking muck settled at their bottoms.

"No wonder, all the water samples that were collected from these water storage tanks tested positive for all kinds of lethal bacteria", said the Health Officer. Reacting to the survey report Dr Neelambar Bhatt, a senior physician at Soban Singh Jina Base Hospital, Haldwani, said the water the children and college going students are forced to drink in their schools and colleges is "extremely dangerous" for their health.

"This bacteria-infested water is a source of a number of lethal waterborne diseases like diarrhoea, colitis, hepatitis, typhoid etc", said the heath expert. Ironically, however, the problem is not confined to just schools and colleges.

When contacted the Executive Engineer at Jal Sansthan, Haldwani, Prem Singh said the "majority of the people in the residential colonies in the foothill town of Haldwani and its suburbs don't bother to clean up the overhead water storage tanks." "Can you imagine, it is Sunday and I am making the rounds of colonies requesting the people to keep their water storage tanks clean", said the Executive Engineer while talking to Hindustan Times over his cellphone.

"In the meanwhile, however, notices have been issued to all the schools and colleges recently surveyed by the officials to clean-up their water storage tanks at the earliest", the Health Officer told HT..

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