Jawans brought jaundice from outside Odisha, claims TTI chief

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Mar 15:

Instead of taking curative measures to restore health and sanitation at the Traffic Training Institute (TTI) in the Odisha capital, the authorities at the helm of affairs are sticking to the ‘blatant lie’ that the state of health of the trainees are in order and claiming that the jawans got afflicted with jaundice elsewhere.

The investigative report in ‘Sambad’, which exposed the sufferings of the over 50 trainee jawans afflicted with jaundice, has been dismissed by the senior authorities of the institute.

‘‘The Public Health Engineering Organisation officials collected water samples from the institute on Saturday and it was found that the samples are potable and infection-free,’’ Principal of the TTI, Purushottam Sahu claimed.

“Everything is fine here. We have been purifying the water so as to make it fit for drinking, besides taking measures to provide hygienic food and maintain cleanliness in the campus,” he said.

Notably, the principal also refused to accept that the water samples tested three days ago confirmed contamination.

Surprisingly, the head of the institute claimed that there is no probability of inmates getting affected with jaundice in the campus. They must have been afflicted with the virus in their respective hometowns, he claimed.

However, the claims have been rejected outright by hepatologists and medicine specialists here.

‘‘The jaundice virus infection is detected within a week of its incubation. The praobability of some one getting infected at some other place and taking ill after several days is minimal. Moreover, a large number of people getting infected at one place can be attributed to contaminated water or unhygienic living conditions,’’ city-based Medicine Specialist, Dr Gobind Chandra Nayak said.

It may be mentioned here that the principal had maintained the same stand a fortnight ago when 40 trainees of the institute had taken ill due to jaundice. He had said that water purifiers have been installed in the barrack, water storage units were being sanitised from time to time and the situation was under control.

The report about over 50 fresh cases in the institute has put the authorities on sticky wicket. They are putting in all efforts to hush up the matter.

A portion of the Haldipadia slum was inside the TTI campus and the main drain flows through it. The inmates of the training institute under the Commissionerate police suspect that the water pipelines might have been contaminated due to leakage in it, an inmate said.

It was earlier reported that about 50-60 trainees from Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Rourkela, Jharsuguda and Deogarh districts are suffering from jaundice and are regularly visiting the Capital Hospital for treatment.