Indore’s water contamination deaths demand accountability — without undoing India’s sanitation gains

The deaths in Indore due to water contamination is a gigantic tragedy, justifying the furore. It calls for the strictest investigation and pinpointing of lapses, including specific culpability or broad accountability. Urgent interventions are required, mostly by local authorities, backed up by citizen awareness and action.

Contaminated water has been creating havoc in parts of the country with a periodicity which cannot be ignored. Arsenic and fluoride contamination of ground water has been causing health risks to millions across several states. Death and damage due to consumption of dirty water is an affront to India's developmental aspirations.

Understandably, such tragedy elsewhere would have raised lower decibels. Indore is more accountable owing to its brand as the cleanest city of India. But a balance lies in not using the occasion for questioning the "swachhata" heritage of Indore and the country over the last decade, a decisive national gain recognised globally, if not a completed task.

Well-Earned Badge

Indore has earned its top ranking through a rigorous national assessment backed by third-party verification and citizen feedback. Swachh Survekshan, the world's largest cleanliness survey, has become more stringent and scientific since 2016. The city has set benchmarks in waste segregation, introducing multiple source-level bins including for hazardous, e-waste and sanitary waste, even as many cities struggle with basic dry-wet separation. Indore has also made significant gains in wastewater treatment.

Its well-equipped sanitation workforce has emerged as a visible civic force. The city's model offers a template for managing India's daily 1.6 lakh tonnes of solid waste and has even drawn visitors keen to study its sanitation practices.

Significant Gains

Surat, Navi Mumbai and even smaller towns across the country have come up the cleanliness ladder following the example of Indore. During the 2014-2019 period, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) focused on safe sanitation, both access and usage; in the second phase, attention is on the complex task of waste management. Consolidation of practices like door-to-door collection of waste, segregation and processing, waste-to-wealth and circularity have been raised in cradles like Indore and few other cities, which responded with determination and elaborate action to SBM goals.

The 'Super Swachh League' created under SBM 2.0 last year, consisting of cleanliness toppers, has the potential to proactively integrate with other civic amenities, provision of clean water being the most basic.

City Introspection

The Indore tragedy is undoubtedly an occasion for India's 4,800 cities and towns to step back and consider a deeper approach to civic wellbeing. Leaking pipelines and toxic water from taps reflect on everyday urban governance, more than on any policy or mission.

Water boards and public health engineering departments, which oversee potable water supply, must not decree fitness of water where it is not.

Water testing must be genuine, regular and at all points of flow through quality labs rather than a box-ticking exercise.

JJM and AMRUT

Water and sanitation remain state subjects under the Seventh Schedule, even as the Centre has rolled out large missions for funding, guidance and technical support. Under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), states can use 2% of allocations for water quality monitoring, including laboratories, field kits, equipment, skilled manpower and citizen awareness.

Functional household tap connections have risen sharply from 17% in 2019 to over 81.5% of rural homes. However, ensuring tap functionality and water quality will remain a continuous challenge.

In urban areas, AMRUT and AMRUT 2.0, with an outlay of around ₹3 lakh crore, aim to provide household tap connections across statutory towns while expanding sewage and septage management. Greater convergence between these flagship programmes is now essential, both at the policy and implementation levels.

Now Clean Water

Indore's recovery should not come at the cost of dismissing hard-won gains. The answer is not to roll back progress but to raise the bar. A truly clean India rests on clean land, water and air. While air quality has entered mainstream policy debate, clean water must now command equal urgency from governments and citizens alike. That would be the most meaningful response to the tragedy in Indore.

The Author is former Director General, Swachh Bharat Mission