Weeks after judicial panel held him responsible for Indore water tragedy, IAS officer made Collector

In the weeks following the release of a Judicial Commission report on the Indore water contamination tragedy, IAS officer Rohit Sisonia, who was held primarily responsible for the disaster, has been appointed as Collector of Raisen district as part of a bureaucratic reorganization by the Government. This appointment has drawn criticism from the Opposition Congress, with State unit president Jitu Patwari questioning the transparency of transfer postings in the state.

Patwari accused the government of prioritizing favoritism over accountability in important postings. Sisonia, a 2017 IAS batch officer, had previously been suspended for negligence following the tragedy in Indore's Bhagirathpura, where more than 30 people died due to bacterial contamination of drinking water. The one-member judicial panel formed to investigate the cause of the tragedy submitted its report on August 18, blaming the contamination on the mixing of sewage water with drinking water due to damaged, parallel pipelines.

The report held Sisonia and the then-executive engineer (water supply), Sanjeev Shrivastava, as primary responsible for various lapses in inspections, repair works, and delays in projects to replace the water pipeline. Patwari's criticism sparked questions about whether the government's decision to appoint Sisonia as Collector was based on the panel's report and whether the facts were considered before the appointment.