Lok Satta Organizing a Medical Camp at Bholakpur, Hyderabad

The Lok Satta Party is organizing a medical camp in Bholakpur where a few people have died and more than 100 fallen ill by drinking polluted Metro water.

Mr. C. V. L. Narasimha Rao, Lok Satta Party’s candidate for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat, Mr. Rohit Kumar, candidate for the Musheerabad Assembly seat and Mr. N. Ravinder, President of the Greater Hyderabad Lok Satta unit, went round the affected localities today and visited hospitals where the victims were undergoing treatment.

The three leaders said in a statement that the Lok Satta would be organizing the camp for two days to help people who were reluctant to undergo treatment amidst unhygienic surroundings in the Government’s Gandhi Hospital and could not afford costly treatment in private hospitals.

The Bholakpur tragedy underlined the Government’s failure even to provide basic amenities to citizens in Hyderabad often proclaimed as a Metropolis in the making and a hub of technology. They recalled that only four days ago, the Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan had alerted the authorities about pollution of drinking water with sewage in Kukatpally area. That even CARE Hospitals’ nurses developed diarrhea because of polluted drinking water underlined the problem was not confined to one area. Although Bholakpur residents had drawn the authorities’ attention to drinking water getting polluted with effluents from leather units, no action had been taken. Their plea for dispatch of water tankers too had not been heeded.

The Lok Satta pointed out that it was sheer negligence that caused the tragedy since the State had the resources and technology to provide safe drinking water to every citizen not merely in the Twin Cities but all over the State.

The absence of coordination between the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, the Metro Water and Sewerage Board and the Pollution Control Board merely aggravated people’s plight.