GUNTUR: The diarrhoea menace which began spreading on March 4 in the old Guntur of Guntur East Assembly constituency is now spreading to newer areas making people cautious of drinking water supplied by the Guntur Municipal Corporation. Soon after the cleaning of underground drainage pipelines in the diarrhoea-affected started in the old Guntur city, on Sk Ismail, 52, of Ali Nagar Lane 3 died due to diarrhoea and slowly rising the toll to 18. As the condition has still not been totally brought under control, minister for municipal administration P. Narayana camped in Guntur and supervising the ongoing changing of rusted and damaged water supply pipelines and help bring normalcy back in the Guntur city.
A majority of diarrhoea cases were reported from old Guntur, Bara Imam Punja, Anandpeta and other areas of 10 wards of old Guntur since March 4 due to acute diarrhoea outbreak. The GMC found damaged pipelines and BR Stadium over head tank water supplying pipelines mixed with drainage water causing drinking water contamination and started repairing works. But later the diarrhoea spread to the new areas of Guntur west constituency.
Avagahana organisation secretary K. Sivarami Reddy said that their organisation conducted a primary survey in the Guntur west areas and found water leakages and damaged water supply pipelines contaminating the drinking water in the city. He said that leakages and damages to the water supplying pipelines found in 26 areas of Arundelpeta, Brodipeta, Srinagar and Sthambalagaruvu. He said that water colour was changed due to pollution and contamination and locals of these new areas are falling ill due to consumption of this polluted water. Mr Reddy stated the GMC concentrating only on old Guntur but should resolve the leakages in the new areas to restrain huge outbreak of diarrhoea.
Bahujan Samaj Party Guntur district vice-president M. Vardhan Yadav alleged that government and GMC totally failed to curb diarrhoea for the past 16 days and demanded removal of minister Narayana from ministry for showing negligence. IUML AP president Basheer Ahmed demanded stern action against officials who showed negligence to change damaged pipelines which killed 18 people.
