More enteric cases pouring in

kolkata: more cases of enteric diseases have been pouring in from the southeastern fringes of kolkata, calcutta municipal corporation authorities said on sunday. the complaints have come mostly from picnic garden,tiljala and topsia. according to mayor in council member (water supply) sovan chatterjee, in most places in the localities, drinking water gets contaminated by sewer water due to the poor drainage system.more than 100 residents from those localities have been admitted in the infectious diseases hospital in beliaghata. according to hospital authorities, many of the patients are suffering from dehydration. on april 11, cases of enteric diseases were first reported from harish mukherjee road in south kolkata, followed by cases from kalighat patuapara, a stone’s throw from trinamul congress chief mamata banerjee’s residence and some parts of bhowanipore. more than 50 people from the kalighat area had earlier been admitted to the beliaghata hospital, suffering from enteric diseases. ironically, even 11 days after the outbreak of enteric diseases in parts of south kolkata, calcutta municipal corporation authorities are yet to pinpoint what had led to contamination of water in these places. a civic team collected water samples from those areas on april 17 for laboratory tests. however, the samples are yet to be tested. according to atanu mukherjee, the officer on special duty(health), delay in collection of samples led the delay in the tests. however, chatterjee said he would seek a report from the officials about reason for the delay. meanwhile, an acute water crisis is still persisting throughout city.the cmc water department yet to repair the 62-inch water pipe lying in between tallah and palta. as a result, residents in large parts of north and central kolkata have been experiencing water scarcity since early march. the worst affected areas include cossipore, bidhan sarani, chittaranjan avenue, burrabazar and jorasanko. with the temperature soaring, large parts of south kolkata too are reeling under water scarcity.the worst hit has been the tubewell zones like behala, jadavpore and parts of tollygunge. according to cmc water department sources, the repair works in the 22 kilometre pipeline would not be complete before may. the department officials made it clear that till the completion of repair water crisis would persist.