Jaundice outbreak case: arrested contractor, exen hospitalized

Two persons who were arrested by SIT in Jaundice outbreak case complained of chest pain today and were hospitalised.
The Executive Engineer, Vinod Kumar, who was arrested yesterday could not be interrogated as he complained of chest pain and was admitted to Indira Gandhi medical College Hospital, an official said.
He was earlier produced in the court of Judicial Magistrate and remanded to 14 days judicial custody.
A contractor, Akshay Dogra, who was arrested on January 29 and was on police remand, also complained of pain and has been admitted to the hospital.
Dogra, who is the main accused in the case registered on the basis of the complaint of Deputy Mayor, Tikender Panwar was awarded three year contract for maintenance of Sewerage treatment plant and paid Rs 1.25 crore annually but the actual amount spent by him was meagre and as a result the quality of water was not maintained, SP, Shimla D W Negi said.

The SIT would thoroughly scan the records of Irrigation and Public health department and Pollution Control Board regarding the inspections and reports on water quality and fix the responsibility and later the role of SMC officers would also be probed, he added.

Meanwhile the number of jaundice cases has touched 1200 and fifteen to 20 new cases are being reported every day.
Former Himachal BJP chief minister Suresh Bharadwaj, who is also sitting MLA from Shimla today demanded constitution of a high powered committee to probe the reasons for outbreak of jaundice and said that the situation had become alarming as nearly 5,000 cases have been detected in Shimla and surrounding areasso far.

Demanding that the committee should also explore and suggest measures to prevent such occurrences in future, he said that both Shimla Municipal Corporation and the state governments departments like IPH and Pollution Control board are shifting the blame on each other instead of taking effective steps to deal with the situation.
"How the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor of SMC can can absolve themselves from the responsibility of this disaster when the Union government had sanctioned Rs 250 crore under JNNURM for improvement of the sewerage system in the town", he said adding that the amount has lapsed due to indifferent attitude of Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, just because the scheme was out of tune with their political ideology.

Bhardwaj also raised question over tardy progress of SIT probe and alleged powerful and influential persons involved in the matter are being shielded.
The supervising staff did not supervise and report, testing agencies issued reports without testing, Pollution Control Board just issued notices since 2013 without taking any action against the culprits.
The Municipal Corporation distributed the infected water to the public of Shimla without verifying its fitness for human consumption and the investigating agencies are only arresting the small fish, Bharadwaj said.