By mid-November, the problem had metastasized. Another resident, Shivani Thakle, filed a more pressing complaint: “There is acid in the dirty water.”

Indore Municipal Corporation workers conduct a cleanliness drive after several people were affected due to consumption of contaminated water at Bhagirathpura area, in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. (PTI Photo)

As December wore on, the complaints turned desperate. On the 18th, residents reported a “foul stench” in the Narmada water supply. By the 28th, Ganesh Paraskar and Yash Parewa informed that “90 per cent of Ward 11 was falling ill — severe vomiting, diarrhoea, dehydration”.

On December 29, after the first deaths were reportedthe administration finally woke up. “Our aunt, Nirmala Prajapat, and my father, Indar Prajapat, are in serious condition,” said Ritik Prajapat, “If anything happens to them, I don’t know what I will do.”

Sewage mixed with drinking water has led to at least eight deaths in Bhagirathpurawhile more than 200 have been hospitalised as the Madhya Pradesh authorities now rush to control the damage. Prima facie, the cause appears to be a toilet built on a drinking water line with no safety tank underneath. Officially, the administration has so far linked four deaths and 212 hospitalisations to the contamimated water.

But what happened in Bhagirathpura was not an unforeseen catastrophe. Municipal records, helpline data, and testimonies from residents and officials reveal how ignored warnings and stalled bureaucratic processes contributed to the incident.

Missteps and blame game

In 2025, Indore received 266 water quality complaints across the city. Zone 4, which includes Bhagirathpura, recorded 23 formal complaints. Records from the Indore Mayor’s helpline reveal that 16 cases of water contamination were assigned to Assistant Engineer Yogesh Joshi over the past year. Of those 16 cases, five were resolved. Seven were simply closed, marked as completed.

Moreover, according to highly placed sources in the Indore municipal corporation, more than a year before the outbreak, a file was prepared for laying a new Narmada water pipeline. The tender was floated after senior corporation officials conducted a spot check and found that water pipelines needed fixing. The file was prepared on November 12, 2024, and a tender was floated on July 30, 2025. The work order to execute the final leg of the project was passed on December 26, 2025, just when the deaths started coming to light.

Corporator Kamal Waghela, under whose jurisdiction Bhagirathpura falls, confirmed that the demand for laying a new Narmada water pipeline was raised last year, following which a file was prepared. However, he alleged that the file was “kept unnecessarily pending for nearly seven months”.

Waghela, in a letter to Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on December 31, alleged that despite multiple follow-ups, officials kept responding that the matter was “under process”. It was only after he approached the mayor that a tender was eventually issued on July 30, 2025, “after excessive delay,” but even then, the process was not completed within the prescribed timeframe.

“This incident is not merely an administrative lapse, but the result of grave criminal negligence that deliberately endangered public health. Prima facie, this case falls under gross dereliction of duty, contempt of orders and violation of public health laws,” Waghela wrote.

When contacted, Yogesh Joshi, the Assistant Engineer responsible for Zone 4, who has now been suspended for not addressing the complaints of water contamination, said, “I manage three zones, which is impossible to handle alone. Local staff had already informed me about this situation. In fact, the head office was aware that the water pipelines in this area had been damaged at least a year ago. Although a tender for repairs had been floated, the work order was issued only two or three days ago.”

Bablu Parshad, the water works in-charge of the area, described Bhagirathpura as an infrastructural nightmare: an old, unplanned network in one of the city’s most congested neighbourhoods, with roads only 10 to 12 feet wide. When he began working there three years ago, he said, “the sewage and water systems had already collapsed”.

He claims to have managed to fix about 60 per cent of the water pipelines in the area. “Eight months ago, the Mayor visited the area and saw the poor conditions firsthand. A tender was filed to resolve the remaining issues, but officials failed to proceed. Both the Mayor and I have been pushing constantly to get this moving.”

Parshad said warnings about the need for replacement lines had been raised repeatedly. “On multiple occasions, we reported that a new line was necessary and noted that a new budget was not even required. Despite this, the lines were never replaced.”

Official response

Additional Commissioner Rohit Sisonia, the official responsible for looking into the tenders, rejected the allegations: “It is false to say that there was no work on repairing the water pipelines. There are mainly three lines — the main line, the distribution line, and the final household line that connects homes to the water supply.”

Sisonia says the repair process had been staggered and partly integrated with the AMRUT 2.0, a central government scheme aimed at making cities “water secure” and self-reliant, with a focus on supply, sewerage, septage management and water body renovation.

“The tender in question was launched several months ago. But under the AMRUT 2.0 Yojana, we were already working on water pipeline alignment across the city. How can we then begin work on the tender when that could be a cause for financial misappropriation?” he said.

Sisonia said that in this particular area, around 80 per cent of work on the two major lines had already been completed. “On December 26, we began work on the third line. The DPR was sanctioned, tenders were issued, and contractors were identified,” he said.

“I have been in charge for just two months… This is a 30-year-old line on which work was already underway,” he said.

Sisonia said the investigation teams have identified the source of contamination.

“Our investigation has identified that a small police chowki had been constructed over the main line. There was a bathroom without a safety tank, so all the contaminated waste was being stored in a pit. Below that pit, the main water line had broken, leading to contamination. We have tested samples from the site and confirmed that the samples were contaminated and could cause diarrhoea,” he said.

The municipal authorities have now established a control room to address complaints of broken water pipelines and contamination complaints. “We have deputed a team to work on this case to ensure this incident never repeats again,” he said.