WHAT LIES BENEATH

The deaths from contaminated water in Indore expose the shortsightedness of India's current water-supply model. Tackling the problem will require tighter regulation, better data and a sewage-first approach

- SUSHMITA SENGUPTA, KIRAN PANDEY, SNIGDHA DAS and RAKESH KUMAR MALVIYA

A RUN PRAJAPAT knew trouble was brewing, but did not expect it to arrive so suddenly and upend his life. On December 28, 2025, while working at a construction site, he received a call from his mother. The piped water in their home, she said, smelled foul and was no longer drinkable. It was time, she insisted, to buy a filter. By the following day, her body began to fail her. “She complained of severe abdominal pain and nausea. There was little time to understand what was happening. After two bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting, she died before we could reach a hospital,” Prajapat recalls. In the days that followed, the illness spread across Bhagirathpura, a congested, neighbourhood in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore city. Residents estimate that 3,000 people suffered vomiting, diarrhoea, dehydration and weakness, with 450 requiring hospitalisation. By January 21, as many as 25 succumbed to the illnesses.

Laboratory tests by Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College in Indore detected pathogenic organisms in the samples of piped water, such as Vibrio cholerae, faecal coliform and Escherichia coli, which establishes that sewage had seeped into the potable-water system, triggering the diarrhoeal outbreak.

The deaths prompted protests across the city and a crackdown on government officials accused of ignoring complaints about contaminated water for months. The state government has classified the episode as a “public health contingency” and is providing free medical treatment to those affected, along with compensation of ₹2 lakh to each victim's family. Pipelines supplying water from the Narmada river are also being replaced. Naresh Bhaskar, executive engineer in the municipal water supply department, tells