The builders of Greenwood Nest, in New Town, have finally begun construction of a water treatment plant (WTP), months after more than 150 residents started falling sick and some 50 of them got hospitalised from water-borne diseases.

Greenwood Nest is a New Town complex that can be reached by taking a left turn from New Town bus stand, if approaching from the Salt Lake side. It is close to complexes like Rohra Heights and also the Kestopur Canal. It is a joint venture between the Shrachi Group and West Bengal Housing Board.

Residents started moving into Greenwood Nest from the end of 2022. “My family started getting stomach upsets right from griha pravesh,” said Shiuli Chatterjee, a resident who moved in last year. “Like others, we assumed it was because the water was hard, but we all had reverse osmosis (RO) water filters at home and gradually adjusted.”

But a localised pandemic of sorts began in August 2024 with multiple residents getting diseases like hepatitis, typhoid and E.coli. Chatterjee’s son, who is in Class XII, has been so sick they haven’t been able to take him for a USG. Her nine-year-old daughter has got E.Coli and both children are running high temperature for weeks.

Children as young as three have been hospitalised, as have the aged and many are getting hospitalised repeatedly. Pregnant women in the complex are saying their prayers. “All nearby hospitals know that any patient coming from our complex is suffering from water-borne diseases,” said Prasanjit Saha, whose wife is recovering from hepatitis.

Faulty system

The complex is only five minutes away from New Town’s water treatment plant but, ironically, does not receive water from it. “We approached New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) but learnt that our complex lies just outside their jurisdiction, in the panchayat area. NKDA cannot supply us water,” said one of the residents who went to meet the authorities.

“Greenwood Nest’s water comes solely from underground sources. We have spoken to some other complexes next to us who do the same thing but they are not suffering from water-borne diseases. So we turned to our builders,” said Saha.

And herein lies the problem.

“Shrachi’s advertisement brochure had promised a water filtration plant but they didn’t build one. We have been reaching out to them since we started falling sick through calls, texts and mails but they have been brushing it aside,” said Amith Kumar Dugar, who was hospitalised for gastroenteritis, whose 13-year-old son got both hepatitis A and typhoid and whose seven-year-old son got typhoid.

On October 19, the government sent a team comprising doctors and health officers to investigate the issue and conduct tests on water samples there.

The report was “not at all satisfactory showed the presence of coliform both at the source (borewell) and underground reservoir.” Total coliform and faecal coliform, was in fact “too numerous to count”.

On October 24, Shrachi officials went down to the complex and were gheraoed by residents till late night. They have been video taped promising to make amends within a month. “We asked them to drink the water we have been getting but they refused as they care for their lives. What do they take maintenance money from us for?” said another resident.

Making amends

On being approached by The Telegraph Salt Lake, the Shrachi group issued a statement that said the Greenwood Nest project had paid access fees of Rs 3.08 crore to Hidco. Hidco, in 2019, thereafter had issued an NOC to NKDA to extend to Greenwood Nest infrastructure facilities such as drainage, sewerage and water supply, the statement claimed. “We are in regular talks with NKDA so that they start supplying water,” the spokesperson said.

However, an NKDA official said that this was an impossibility. “To this day, Hidco has never asked us to supply water anywhere,” the official said.

In the meantime, Shrachi has promised immediate steps to the residents. They have started work on a WTP and have committed to completing the same by the end of November. A water softener will take another 15 days to be put up.

Till the WTP becomes functional, they will also reimburse the cost of 40l of packaged drinking water per day per family.

They will clean the tanks, pipelines and initiate an audit of the entire system to identify the source of contamination.

“Shrachi has been making promises for months so we will believe them only when they deliver. In any case we have all fallen ill by now,” said another resident.

Additional reporting by Sudeshna Banerjee