BMC official mistakenly drinks sanitiser instead of water; what happens next: WATCH

A senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) erroneously drank sanitiser instead of water while presenting the civic body's education budget in Mumbai on Wednesday afternoon. However, he immediately realised his mistake and spat it out.

A video of the incident also later went viral on social media in which the official was seen opening a bottle with a white cap and taking the sip. Ramesh Pawar, the assistant municipal commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), took a sip of sanitiser from a bottle kept on his desk in the general body meeting hall after he sat on the dais along with other officials to present an e-budget for education.

#WATCH: BMC Joint Municipal Commissioner Ramesh Pawar accidentally drinks from a bottle of hand sanitiser, instead of a bottle of water, during the presentation of Budget in Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/MuUfpu8wGT — ANI (@ANI) February 3, 2021

Speaking to news agency ANI, Pawar said, "I thought that I should drink water before starting my speech so I lifted the bottle and drank. Bottles of water and sanitiser kept there, were similar. So it happened. As soon as I drank it, I realised the mistake and didn't gulp it all the way down."

According to BMC officials, Pawar immediately realised that he drank sanitiser instead of water and some civic staffers present there also alerted him. He then rushed out of the hall, spit out the sanitiser and rinsed his mouth. Pawar returned within a few minutes and presented the civic body's education budget having an outlay of Rs 2,945.78 crore for the year 2021-22.

According to civic officials, Pawar drank the sanitiser probably because the size and colour of the sanitiser and water bottles were similar.

The incident comes three days after 12 children were administered hand sanitiser drops instead of oral polio vaccine drops at a village in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district. Earlier, in a case of gross negligence, 12 children, aged below 5, were administered hand sanitiser drops instead of oral polio vaccine drops at a primary health centre at Kapsikopri village in Yavatmal. 

Subsequently, one of the children complained of vomiting and uneasiness, a district official earlier said. The affected children were subsequently admitted to a government hospital and their condition was stated to be stable, the official said.