Meals at this isolation have pins and bugs

Civic official tells inmates of Sinhgad facility they will have to eat this food if they want to live, gets PMC rap

A grotesque vibe hangs around the temporary isolation facility carved out of Sinhgad Institutes’ girls’ hostel on Vadgaon Budruk campus, specifically set up by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for asymptomatic patients of COVID-19. The inmates have recounted many horrors of their stay — right from finding stray objects in their food to the many infestations and even lackadaisical service, which have contributed to an uncomfortable quarantine period.

The facility houses 600 inmates from different parts of the city. One of them claimed to have received a nail in the breakfast and another one said that he had found an insect in dinner the same night. These instances have only mounted, which were conveyed to PMC officials on Wednesday morning. It led to chaos between the two, with the civic officials saying, if they “want to live, they have to eat the same food or die of starvation”. The errant statement from one official even prompted PMC to reprimand him.


An inmate recounted the details of the event. He said, “Since the last eight days, we have been finding roaches, insects, hair pins etc. in our food. Despite many complaints, there has been no improvement. On Wednesday, a junior engineer from PMC came to the facility and said if we want to live, we have to eat this food without any complaint. This is inhuman and no one is bothered about us.”

Some of the inmates have found foreign objects after having put a morsel of the food in their mouths. One such incident from two days ago was recounted by a quarantined local, when she was almost about to ingest a pin that came in the food. “It got stuck in my throat. The officials then told me that they will take me to another hospital to remove it the next day. Fortunately, it came off the next day in the morning,” the woman said.

With such a grave complaint being ignored, issues like stomach and headaches, inmates claim, are shrugged off by the officials. “They say we have to inform them four to five hours before we (actually) need the medicines. How is it possible?” an inmate said.

The supplier has now been asked to pay close attention to the arrangements in his kitchen by installing cameras in the cooking and packaging spaces. Assistant ward commissioner of PMC, Santosh Tandale, who is in charge of the facility, added that the supplier has also been asked to improve cleanliness and hygiene. “In case complaints are made again, we can check the footage,” he said.

Tandale also confirmed that the complaints made previously were met with sharp retort from the PMC engineer that led to ruckus. “We have asked him to get his act together and issued awarning. He was told that the way he reacted was wrong. However, we are also inspecting how genuine the complaints are,” he said.