Water supply back to normal in Shimla, tourist footfall looks up
Shimla, June 15: The water supply in the Himachal Pradesh capital was back to normal on Friday after over a month of crisis that saw widespread protests, marches to Chief Minister's residence at midnight and even interventions by the high court.
The Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) a day earlier announced it would supply water in the city every alternate day, a routine schedule followed in the city for many years.
"The daily water availability has improved to 35 to 40 million litres per day (MLD). So, the distribution has also increased," an official told here.
Planned by the British for a maximum population of 16,000, Shimla, now with a population of nearly 200,000, requires 42 MLD water.
This summer, Shimla for the first time in its history saw an unprecedented water crisis owing to drying up of water channels in its catchment.
Rampant water shortage forced residents to lock their water tanks and the government to provide security to the employees supplying water.
Old-timers blame water crisis over the years to losing green cover and natural water streams and springs due to unplanned urbanisation while water experts say deficient snow during the past winter triggered drought-like condition this season.
Locals rue that of late, Shimla has become synonymous with water scarcity -- both in summer and winter.
The civic authorities blame leakages in the distribution network, a significant portion of which goes back to the British days, and diminishing water resources that have been over-exploited to meet the increasing demand from the tourism industry.
Slamming the civic authorities and the state government over the water crisis, the High Court, which is still monitoring the situation, directed the municipal corporation that there should be no supply of water to any individual through a tanker, even to the VIPs, including the judges.
Listing the case for next hearing on June 18, the court wanted to know the steps initiated by the government and the municipal corporation for modernising the system of collection, pumping, uplifting and distribution of water.
As Shimla makes news for narrowly averting a Cape Town-like situation, water-starved residents turned to social media campaigns, asking the tourists to stay away from the northern India's famed hill resort during the peak holiday season.
According to the hospitality industry, at the height of tourism season, over 50 per cent of the bookings were cancelled this month.
However, a state Tourism Department spokesperson said the inflow of tourists was picking up gradually and about 20 per cent increase in hotel bookings was registered over the past one week of June.
"Now we are getting sufficient water supply every day. Even the footfall of the tourists has once again increased," D.P. Bhatia, Liaison Officer with the Shimla-based Oberoi Group of hotels, told here.
The water shortage had left the tourism industry representatives worried as Shimla gets 20,000-30,000 tourists on an average every weekend during the peak summer season -- during May-June.
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'Low-quality' catheters supplied to West Bengal govt hospitals at high price, probe ordered
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal health department has launched a probe into the supplies of allegedly low-quality and locally made catheters at a high price to several government hospitals, posing a risk to the lives of patients undergoing treatment in these facilities, officials said.
Such central venous catheters (CVCs) were allegedly supplied to at least five medical colleges and hospitals in the state, defying allocation of international standard-compliant CVCs, they said.
The distribution company, which has been accused of supplying these catheters to government hospitals, admitted to the fault but placed the blame on its employees.
"We started checking stocks some time back and found these locally made CVCs in my hospital store. These catheters are of low quality as compared to those allocated by the state. We have informed the state health department," a senior official of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital told PTI.
Low-quality catheters were also found in the stores of other hospitals, which indicates "possible involvement of insiders in the scam", a health department official said.
The low-quality CVCs were supplied by a distributor in the Hatibagan area in the northern part of Kolkata for the last three to four months, he said.
"Such kinds of local CVCs are priced around Rs 1,500 but the distributor took Rs 4,177 for each device," the official said.
A CVC is a thin and flexible tube that is inserted into a vein to allow for the administration of fluids, blood, and other treatment. It's also clinically called a central line catheter.
"An initial probe revealed that the distribution company Prakash Surgical had supplied the low-quality and locally manufactured catheters to several government hospitals instead of the CVCs of the government-designated international company.
"All the units will be tested and a proper investigation is on to find out who benefited from these supplies," the health department official said.
The distribution company blamed its employees for the supply of inferior quality catheters.
"I was sick for a few months. Some employees of the organisation made this mistake. We are taking back all those units that have gone to the hospitals. It's all about misunderstanding," an official of the distribution company told PTI.
According to another state health department official, a complaint was lodged with the police in this connection.
Asked about how many patients were affected by the usage of such low-quality CVCs, the official said, "The probe would also try to find that out".
According to sources in the health department, some of the staff of the hospitals' equipment receiving departments and some local officials of international organisations might be involved in the alleged irregularities.
