When water turns venom: food poisoning at Palnadu girls’ hostel keeps officials on toes Premium

With water contamination emerging as the prime reason, the district administration has chalked out a multi-pronged strategy to monitor the quality of food and water served at educational institutions

A little over two weeks ago, more than 200 students at a social welfare girls hostel in Sattenapalli mandal of Palnadu district fell sick due to suspected food poisoning. The young girls showed symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach pain and headache, and 61 of them had to be hospitalised.

Contaminated water was identified as one of the major reasons for the distressing incident at the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Gurukulam (Girls) hostel at Ramakrishna Puram.

Reports from the laboratory, which tested water samples from the RO plant at the hostel, revealed the presence of Klebsiella bacteria with a count of 460 MPN (most probable number) per 100 ml of water. Escherichia coli (E.coli) bacteria, which comes from human and animal waste, was found at 1609 MPN per 100 ml of water.

Moreover, the pH value of water was detected at 5.93 — the pH level of drinking water should ideally be between 6.5 and 8.5. A lower pH value means the water is acidic, and elevated levels of metal contaminants found in acidic water can health issues that could prove fatal or debilitating for children. Vomiting, diarrhea, kidney disease, liver disease, stomach cramps, and nausea are among the health issues caused by the consumption of acidic water.

“Prima facie, we have identified water contamination as one of the main reasons,” District Collector Siva Sankar Lotheti told The Hindu, adding the RO plant was repaired at a cost of ₹1 lakh and the water samples were again sent for testing, this time meeting the ideal standards.

The food poisoning incident also prompted the Collector to direct the authorities concerned to collect water samples from all government-run residential hostels and educational institutions for lab testing. In addition to that, he made it mandatory for private schools to produce water quality certificates before applying for renewal permission.  

On the other hand, Mr. Siva Sankar brought in a new practice for effective monitoring of educational institutions. He appointed a district-level officer for each mandal, and directed them to visit certain residential hostels every Friday, have food there and submit reports to the Command Control Centre by 4 p.m. After that, a video conference is held with all officials on the same day for a review.