Diarrhoea outbreak: Gurla village turns into a political war zone between the A.P. govt. and Opposition

The government and the opposition spar over the actual number of deaths due the disease.

The nondescript village Gurla of Vizianagaram district-Andhra Pradesh has suddenly become a political war zone for both ruling NDA parties and opposition party YSRCP, due to the breakout of diarrhoea and subsequent reported death of around 10 persons and hospitalisation of 140 persons. So far, the government officially claimed that only one person died of the communicable disease and others were ‘natural’ deaths.

However, YSRCP says that the total deaths were 16 and the disease had spread to nearby villages too. The opposition party took up the issue seriously as Gurla which comes under the geographical jurisdiction of Cheepurupalli Assembly constituency which was represented by the Opposition leader of AP Legislative Council Botcha Satyanarayana in 2004, 2009 and 2019.

According to opposition parties, the officials have not given much priority for the incident initially as almost all were busy with Vizianagaram utsav and Sirimanotsav which was celebrated on October 15 when the diarrhoea broke out in the Gurla village, located around 20 km from Vizianagaram district headquarters. Instead of taking steps immediately to shift the patients to nearby hospitals, they were provided treatment in the ‘special medical camp’ organized in Gurla itself. Strangely, they were not provided even beds, they allege.

The small benches designed for primary school students were used as the beds. There are no stretchers and other medical equipment. The patients suffering from vomiting and motions were not provided adequate healthy food. Unfortunately, they could not sleep properly in the absence of proper beds in the so called medical camp, Botcha had alleged on Monday.

As the reported lapses were pointed by the opposition parties, the officials had hurriedly arranged stretchers and ensured extra care for the patients. Instead of announcing the total number of deaths, they have given priority to convince that nine deaths out of ten were natural. The officials tried in vain to convince everyone that diarrhoea broke out due to open defecation and contamination of water in private borewells which are closely located to the toilets in their houses.

In fact, the lack of coordination among Panchayat, Rural Water Supply, Medical and Health departments is said to be another reason for poor sanitation and contamination of water supplied through pipelines to each house. During the review meeting, Mr. Kalyan expressed anger over the lack of cleanliness of the water tank which was supposed to be cleaned every month. The officials replied that there were no funds for the maintenance of the water tanks and pipelines. In fact post the review meet, Mr. Pawan had blamed the earlier YSRCP government for diverting the panchayat raj funds and not for taking care of sanitation and providing clean drinking water.

 The collective failure of district officials has become a political weapon for the opposition party to train its guns against the government. Mr.Botcha Satyanarayana pointed out that such incidents had never happened in AP and it was the miserable failure of the administration which could not control water contamination of water and failed to provide quick medical aid to the patients. Which the ruling party leaders countered by saying that such major outbreaks happened in Guntur, Krishna and NTR districts, earlier this year during the YSRCP rule and the present condition is due to the apathy of the previous government and the ruling party is now setting things on course.

Aam Aadmi Party’s State convener Seera Ramesh asked the government to announce Rs.30 lakh ex-gratia since the deaths occurred with the failure of the government. “Deaths due to diarrhoea are rarely reported in India. As many as 16 deaths in Gurla village indicated the failure of the government in ensuring proper sanitation, medical and health facilities to the people,” he added. As part of the damage control measure, the government appointed a senior IAS officer K.Vijayanand to inquire into the incidents.

According to sources, the district level officials are likely to be questioned by him during the investigation which would continue for a few days.

Published - October 22, 2024 09:15 am IST