Mitigation and Remedy of Groundwater Arsenic Menace in India

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Mitigation and Remedy of Groundwater Arsenic Menace in India : A Vision Documentvillage suffered from such afflictions in soles of their feet, palms of their hands, and bodies. Thensoon another patient arrived with similar symptoms but more severe and he had an ulcer on hisfinger. After biopsy Dr Saha diagnosed cancer. Then Dr Saha visited the village from whichsuch diseases were being reported. Together with Dr A K Chakrabarti and Dr Garai of All IndiaInstitute of Hygienic and Public Health (AIIH&PH), and Dr A K Saha, Professor of Geology,Presidency College, Calcutta, Dr Saha conducted a thorough research in that village for oneyear. He concluded that the tube well water used for drinking in the village was heavily arseniccontaminated, and was responsible for such diseases. After that, Dr D N Guha Majumdar diagnosedLiver Fibrosis among arsenic patients in the SSKM Hospital, Calcutta, and the samedisease that was indicated by Dr D. V. Dutt in 1976. Soon the disease was found to exist indistricts like South 24 Pargana, North 24 Pargana, Nadia, and Murshidabad. Nearly 33 villages inthese four districts were reported affected by this malady. It was Dr. Saha who brought out firstdocument on Arsenic menace in groundwater in four districts of West Bengal.From 1983 onwards a number of organizations in West-Bengal are working on thegroundwater arsenic contamination investigations, problem identification and mitigation. Theyare largely: (a) School of Tropical Medicine (STM), (b) All India Institute of Hygiene and PublicHealth (AIIH&PH), (c) Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), (d) Centre for Study of Manand Environment (CSME), (e) School Environmental Studies(SOES), JU, (f) WB GovernmentPublic Health Engineering Department (PHED), (g) School of Fundamental Research (SOFR),(h) Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital, and (i) WB Directorate of Health Services, Governmentof West Bengal, etc. In addition to these organizations, there may be a number of otherInstitutions/units working on Arsenic problem in West Bengal across the Country. RecentlyGovernment of West-Bengal has started a project worth Rs. 2100 crores to supply arsenic safewater to the arsenic contaminated districts of West-Bengal.In continued surveys and investigations after 1983 in West Bengal, in every additionalsurvey, more and more arsenic affected areas and districts have been added to the list of arsenicaffected areas. Year wise addition of detected arsenic affected areas, compiled from databaseof SOES, is given in the following table that could help recognize the progression of this menace:Year No of district & Name of district No. of villages(Blocks)Year, 19834(South 24 Pargana, North 24 Pargana, Nadia, and Murshidabad)33 (* )Up to 19916(North 24-Pargana, South 24-Pargana, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda, and93 (*)Bardhaman)Up to 19946(North 24-Pargana, South 24-Pargana, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda,312 (37)and Bardhaman)Up to 19956(North 24-Pargana, South 24-Pargana, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda,and Bardhaman)405 (37)NIH & CGWB 13
Arsenic Menace in India- An AppraisalUp to 1997Up to 1999Up to 2002Up to 2004Up to 2008)9(Malda, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, North24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Kolkata.)9(Malda, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, North24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Kolkata.)9(Malda, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, North24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Kolkata.)9(Malda, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, North24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Kolkata.)9(Malda, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, North24-Parganas,South 24-Parganas and Kolkata.)(*) Not reported830 (58)985 (69)2700 (*)3200 (85)3417(111)Since 1983 when there were only 33 affected (As > 50 µg/L) villages in four districts,the number of villages has increased to 3417 in 111 blocks in nine districts in till 2008 in WestBengal alone. There can be several other lists of arsenic affected areas prepared by differentorganizations, which may differ from one to another, because of number of reasons, e.g.,(i)number of samples analyzed, and different sampling locations (ii) compilation of informationmay be different, etc. However, the fact is that during last 25 years, with every additional survey,an increasing number of contaminated villages and more affected people have been identified.Those raise questions: whether all those identified areas were already under the grim of arseniccontamination but not got exposed; or they resulted from the mobilization from the adjoiningcontaminated areas or triggered from the in-situ source material by the excessive groundwaterexploitation over the passage of time. It needs a mention here that in 1992, the problem ofarsenic groundwater contamination, and people suffering from arsenical skin lesions were alsoreported in Padma-Meghna-Brahmaputra (PMB) plain of Bangladesh. Bangladesh isconsidered worst affected in global arsenic contamination scenario.In 1999, the arsenic groundwater contamination and its health effects in Rajnandgaondistrict were also identified from the analysis of water samples from Rajnandgaon district ofChhattisgarh by SOES.In 2002, the arsenic contamination was also reported in Bihar in middle Ganga plain. Itwas also apprehended in adjoining areas of Uttar Pradesh. In Bihar, two villages, Barisban andSemaria Ojhapatti, in Bhojpur district, located in the western part of the Bihar state, werereported having contamination exceeding 50 µg/L. As of now, according to CGWB and PHED,Govt. of Bihar, out of 38 districts of Bihar, 57 blocks from 15 districts having total populationnearly 10 million have been reported affected by arsenic groundwater contamination above50 µg/L.14NIH & CGWB
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Mitigation and Remedy of Groundwate
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5.2.2 Co-precipitationMitigation an
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5.8 SummaryMitigation and Remedy of
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Mitigation and Remedy of Groundwater Arsenic Menace in India

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