Drinking contaminated water for a week, says students of Mumbai’s Grant Medical College

The medical college has two boys’ hostels– APNA and RM. Of this, RM hostel which houses nearly 500 undergraduate students had two water filters on the first and third floor. According to students, last week, there was a foul smell emanating from the water which also tasted “weird”.

When they opened the filter stationed on the third floor they observed that the water had turned yellow which they had been consuming unknowingly.

“Also, the lower layer of the filter cover had rusted which was getting exposed to the drinking water that was filled with mould,” said a third year MBBS student. “We didn’t know that for months, we were consuming the water,” he added.

The students on Monday raised an outcry about the unhygienic living conditions of the hostel especially when people are more susceptible to developing infection from impure water.

When The Indian Express contacted the college, a senior health officer informed them that they have removed the filter. “It was dysfunctional, but we have already kept it aside,” said the officer. At present, the hostel has only one water filter which forces the students to buy their own water bottles.

“With so many students, the college should install one water filter in all the floors. At night, if we run out of the stored water, we have to go to another floor just to drink water,” said another student from the hostel.

“Two years back, we had filters in each floor which were never replaced with the functional ones,” added the student.

Sources said that the college is in the process to replace all the old filters with new ones. “We are planning to install filters on each floor… it is under process,” said a senior doctor from the college.