Vallabhnagar society residents complain of contaminated water supply

Pune: The residents of Swarganga Housing Society in the Vallabhnagar area have complained about contaminated water supply from PCMC.
The residents of Pimpri said they were getting dirty water for the past three-four days and the civic body had failed to respond to their complaint. A senior scientist from the National Institute of Virology (NIV), also a resident of the society, lodged a complaint through Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC)'s Sarathi portal on the matter, but nobody visited to address their concerns so far. He told TOI that he also took water samples to the laboratory at NIV in Pashan for testing.
"Cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) reported in Pimpri Chinchwad are sporadic and there is no clustering. But if residents are supplied with the same muddy water like our society, the possibility of people developing GBS cannot be ruled out," he said.
A senior official from PCMC's water supply department said the officials concerned in the area had been informed about the matter. They had been directed to investigate it in detail, he added.
A total of 29 GBS cases have been reported in Pimpri Chinchwad so far, of which 20 patients have been discharged from hospitals. One death was reported.
The NIV scientist said some people in the society, which has over 300 flats in 22 different towers, had installed water purifiers inside their flats. "But everyone may not have the water purifier. In some cases, if the quality of water is very dirty, the water purifier may fail to completely purify it," he said.
Rohit Katyare, the secretary of the society, said the residents were worried, and some of them had lodged complaints online with the municipal corporation. "We are taking precautions because of the GBS outbreak reported in Pune. The municipal corporation must act fast because we all use the same water for drinking purposes," he said.