Bijapur police stations get water purifiers, fogging machines

Clean drinking water is being provided to the police personnel in Chhattisgarh's Naxal- affected Bijapur district where security forces are not only battling ultras but also the menace of water-borne diseases.
Water purification systems have been installed in all the police stations and camps in the district, about 450-km from here.
Besides, fogging machines had been provided to the police stations and camps located in 16 hyper-sensitive locations of the district to fight mosquito menace, a senior official has said.
Lack of potable water has always been a major challenge for police personnel, particularly for those involved in anti-insurgency operations in the region, Bijapur Additional Superintendent of Police Mohit Garg told PTI.

The police personnel were largely dependent on local and traditional methods to purify drinking water. But that was not enough as when the personnel go on patrolling in interiors they sometime have to drink water from open sources which often causes illnesses, he said.
In view of this, a decision was taken a few months back to provide RO (reverse osmosis) machines to all the 21 police stations and 24 Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) camps in the district and their installation process was completed last week, the official said.

This is perhaps the first time that local police establishments in a district in the Bastar division have been provided with the facility, he said.

Such facilities are available in the camps of central armed police forces, Garg added.
The division, located in the southern part of the state, comprised seven districts - Bastar, Kanker, Kondagaon, Sukma, Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada.
Water-borne diseases, including typhoid, jaundice and skin-related problems, and vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue are common ailments in the interiors of the division.
Several security personnel, deployed for anti-Maoist operations, have succumbed to these diseases in the past in the region, he added.
Till October this year, at least 60 cases of water-borne diseases and 250 cases of malaria and dengue have been reported with the district police, Garg said.

To safeguard the health of security personnel operating in difficult conditions, their camps have been provided with mosquito nets and repellents.
Despite such precautions, the personnel are exposed to mosquitoes due tolong duration operations deep inside the jungles where they have to survive in extreme weather and rough terrains, he said.
The camps and police stations in the district are also infested with mosquitoes. As a result, more than 20 per cent of the personnel fall sick due to deadly diseases like dengue, falciparum malaria and typhoid, among others, he said.
Garg, a young IPS officer of the 2013 batch, himself contracted malaria and dengue three times during his posting in the district.

An MBA graduate from the IIM Ahmedabad, Garg introduced the idea of providing clean drinking water to all the police personnel, not just in the police stations, but also in deep jungles.
He teamed up with Chief Executive Officer of Bijapur Zila Panchayat Abhishek Kumar Singh to execute the idea.
Both electric and non-electric water purification systems with adequate storage capacity have been installed, the ASP said.
Police personnel have also been provided with filter bottles to purify contaminated water inside jungles during long anti-insurgency operations, Garg said.