Gas leak: Residents want water filter unit shifted out

Mysuru: After chlorine gas leaked from a water filter unit run by the T Narasipura town municipal council, residents are alleging accusing that the leak occurred due to the negligence of officials. Last year, a similar incident had happened while a cylinder was being changed and it repeated this year, they said.
As many as five employees working in the unit who fell sick after the gas leakage on Friday evening, are still recovering in the taluk hospital.
Local residents said that after the gas leak, some people complained of breathing difficulties and coughing due to the foul smell for a few minutes.
Over 15 families living in the surroundings of the unit located at PWD housing quarters near Triveninagar on Mysore Road here who complained of suffocation were immediately shifted to local wedding halls by local authority. Police had used louspeakers to make announcements urging residents in the vicinity to shift elsewhere for a day.
On November 9, 2021, a few employees and fire tenders were pressed into service to fix a gas leak after some people fell sick.
Though the Town Municipal Council claims it has solved the problem now by replacing the damaged cylinder, the residents are demanding that the taluk and district administration shift the unit to the outskirts away from the thickly populated residential colony.
Shivaprasad, one of the residents of Triveninagar urged the government to shift the unit as a gas leak has happened twice due to the negligence of Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board officials as well as local Town Municipal Council.
“Residents of the colony are living in panic because of such incidents. Shifting the unit from residential colony to the outskirts is the only permanent solution,” he said.
Town Municipal Council chief administrative officer Basavaraj told TOI that that civic workers, police and fire personnel had immediately rushed to the spot after the gas leak was noticed in an additional cylinder, which caused panic among the residents. “Residents in the vicinity were shifted to nearby wedding halls as a precautionary measure. The damaged gas cylinder has been returned to the company which supplied chlorine gas to the TMC, seeking a replacement. As the problem is resolved now, we shifted the residents back their houses,” he said.
Taluk health officer Dr Ravikumar said there is no need for people to panic from chlorine gas leakage. People suffer from suffocation, vomiting, skin related allergy due to mild leakage, he said.