The Public Health Department has issued notice to a private engineering college in the outskirts of the city after the water supplied to its hostel was found to contain ‘e-coli’ bacteria, which causes diarrhoea and vomiting.
‘E- coli’ bacteria come from human and animal faecal matter. It was likely that sewage water must have mixed with the drinking water, probably due to a pipeline rupture, leading to the contamination. The samples were taken after several hostellers were hospitalised due to suspected food poisoning. Following the incident, college students also staged protests.
Official sources told The Hindu here on Saturday that the sanitation near the girl’s hostel was also found to be poor with sewage overflowing in the open.
A Health Department team, which inspected the hostel found that the college was yet to get a sanitation certificate. The team also found that the toilets were being badly maintained and posed a health risk.
Further, the college had not obtained an ‘occupancy certificate’, which would ascertain if the building had adequate drinking water and sanitation facilities, besides drainage.
Further, the team also found that hostels were overcrowded. At least four to five students were found staying in a room measuring just around 100 sq.ft. The college hostel accommodated 280 girls and 381 boys.
While the kitchen was reasonably maintained, an official said that the department was in the process of ascertaining whether the college had obtained licences from the Food Safety Department for the kitchen and the food handlers.
The official said that the college had been instructed to rectify these deficiencies within a certain period of time, failing which the hostel will be closed down.
The college would then be asked to arrange for alternative accommodation for the students, he said.
Further, the official said that similar complaints were being reported from many private engineering college hostels.
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