35 water contamination deaths: 2 Indore civic chiefs get clean chit

The commission cleared Yadav of responsibility for a delay in finalising the tender and for the contamination incident. It found that final approval of the tender vested exclusively with the Additional Commissioner and not the Municipal Commissioner. Yadav had assumed charge on September 11, 2025, and the Commission found that he initiated necessary administrative and emergency measures after the incident came to his notice. It said that “there is no evidence on record establishing any negligence, omission, or breach of duty” by Yadav that could justify holding him responsible.

The Commission similarly cleared Verma, who was the Municipal Commissioner before the relevant period of the tender delay. It recorded that Verma handed over charge on February 9, 2025, before the technical bid-opening stage, and that the delay therefore occurred after he had relinquished office. “No responsibility for the delay can be attributed to Verma,” the Commission said.

The Commission has named Sanjeev Kumar Srivastava, Executive Engineer, Water Supply, as one of the key officials whose failure to maintain and monitor the vulnerable pipeline network contributed to the Bhagirathpura contamination. Srivastava was posted in the relevant department from 2013 to 2026 and, according to the Commission, was the senior-most technical officer responsible for maintenance of the water-supply network in the affected area.

The Commission found that he “failed to ensure adequate inspection, preventive maintenance, timely replacement and effective monitoring of the vulnerable pipeline network”. It said he could not avoid his responsibility merely because the original pipelines had been laid decades earlier.

Rohit Sisonia, the former Additional Commissioner (Water Supply), has been named as having primary responsibility at the approval stage of the tender for replacement and repair of the damaged water pipeline. The Commission identified him, along with Srivastava, as having “primary responsibility” for the delay in the tender process.

During the inquiry, the Commission specifically sought records needed to establish who planned, designed, approved, supervised and executed the sewage network laid between 1990 and 1995 and the water-supply network laid between 1999 and 2004. These included alignment plans, engineering designs, blueprints, technical drawings and as-built drawings. But neither the Indore Development Authority nor the Indore Municipal Corporation could produce them.

The Commission said the disappearance or non-availability of the documents “warrants a separate and detailed investigation” to establish the circumstances in which the records became unavailable, identify the persons responsible for their custody and preservation, and determine “whether any negligence or deliberate suppression of official records has occurred”.

The Commission said that without them, it was impossible to verify the “scope of original work,” “quality of execution,” “contractor accountability,” “supervisory responsibility” and “subsequent maintenance obligations.”

“The non-production of these vital records has deprived the Commission of the opportunity to undertake a comprehensive technical examination of the original design, alignment and execution of the water supply pipeline system,” the final report read.

When the Indore Municipal Corporation submitted that the records may have been weeded out in an official exercise, the Commission observed that “the explanation regarding destruction of records in 2010 is unsupported by documentary evidence.”

The Commission observed that the original defects in execution, the prolonged failure to maintain and monitor the infrastructure, and subsequent administrative delays in replacing damaged pipelines together formed “the chain of negligence that ultimately resulted in the supply of contaminated drinking water to the residents of Bhagirathpura.”