January 3, 2026 07:08 AM IST First published on: Jan 3, 2026 at 07:08 AM ISTThe tragedy unfolding in Indore is disquieting. At least eight people have lost their lives, and more than 200 are in hospital after drinking contaminated water supplied by the city’s municipality. The state government has taken disciplinary action against officials and instituted a probe. However, it intervened only after the crisis assumed grave proportions. In fact, Madhya Pradesh Urban Administration Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya’s derisive response to a journalist’s query on the incident betrays a shocking evasion of accountability — he described the question as useless. Municipal water is governed by Bureau of Indian Standards norms, and supplies must be monitored continuously to make sure no pathogen seeps in. Drinking water pipes and sewage lines must be segregated carefully. By all accounts, these fundamentals of urban governance were flouted in Indore, otherwise regarded as India’s best-governed municipality — it has topped the Swachh Survekshan Index for eight consecutive years. The bacterial contamination responsible for the outbreak stemmed from a breach in the water pipeline in the city’s Bhagirathpura area. The residents had flagged this health hazard over two months ago. But officials did not heed the warnings, including those of the local corporator.Water contamination has been a longstanding concern in Indian cities. In November, students of the Vellore Institute of Technology in Bhopal went on a protest against contaminated water supply after a jaundice outbreak on the campus. Three people died in Chennai in December 2024 due to the consumption of contaminated piped water. Disease outbreaks due to waterborne bacteria have also been reported in Bengaluru, Noida, and Kochi in the past two years. They are a grim reminder that piped supply is not an assurance against contamination. Water supply in a large number of cities continues to rely on pipelines laid in colonial times or in the immediate years after Independence. Indore’s water supply network, for instance, is 120 years old.AdvertisementThe 74th Constitutional Amendment gave an expansive mandate to municipalities — from land regulation to water supply, sanitation, and environmental protection. More than 30 years later, urban governance bears little resemblance to the landmark legislation’s vision. Finances are often a problem for local bodies, but even some of India’s richest municipalities — Delhi or Mumbai, for example — have faltered in performing basic civic functions. The local bodies must own a large share of the blame for the growing water and air pollution crises in large parts of the country. Indore’s tragedy illustrates that municipal inertia dogs attempts to modernise infrastructure even in India’s cleanest city. A rapidly urbanising country deserves better.