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In
my response to the article “Bollywood Bloopers”,
I wrote about arsenic groundwater contamination
in Bihar. I provided the links of Jadavpur
University website to understand the gravity of
the problem. I did not intend to spoil the
subject of the article any more, so I decided to
start a new thread on this topic.
Deforestation, drying up of rivers and excessive
use of chemical fertilizers increased the
arsenic content in the groundwater. Against the
WHO's permitted arsenic level of 10 PPB (parts
per billion), water coming out of the pumps in
Bihar have arsenic level as high as 724 PPB.
With the help of UNICEF, Public Health &
Education Department (PHED) is marking the
unsafe hand pumps red and the safe ones blue.
The Government of India has granted Rs 85
million for Bihar’s water quality program. Let
us hope that this grant is utilized properly to
provide safe water to the people. Panchayats
should get the hand pumps tested and ask people
to keep away from unsafe sources (if the village
politics allow that). Rainwater harvesting needs
to be promoted in Bihar.
In the Nov. 10 issue of Science magazine, a new
cost-effective technology is said to be
discovered by the research scientists at Centre
for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology,
Rice University (Houston). This technique uses
nanoparticles to filter arsenic from the
contaminated water. The arsenic scientist from
Jadavpur University, Dipankar Chakravarty,
however, was not very positive of the practical
implementation of this technology. In a
frustrated tone, he mentioned to TOI “In India
and Bangladesh, even a highly successful
technology may not succeed unless the
politicians will it. In India, thousands of iron
removal plants were installed but in practice
90% are not working. The West Bengal government
alone spent $3 million to purchase treatment
plants but 92% plants are lying unused.”
While we can hope that Bihar Government will
take up this problem seriously, on our part, we
must increase the awareness among people about
arsenic problem. We must do something before the
problem takes up the shape of a disaster.
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Comments: |
The article written by Kumod Jha
about the 'water contamination in
Bihar' is really appreciable. I
agree with his views. Since Bihar
has so many rivers, people of Bihar
should not struggle to get pure
water for drinking cooking and other
purpose. Purification and
distribution of water should be
checked ASAP. Govt should pay the
attention on it and people of Bihar
should also take interest to keep
the river and river bank clean.
According to our religion we worship
our rivers in order to pay respect
as river (water) gives life to all
living creatures. - Amrapali
Prasad - Dec. 9, 2006
I read the article about the water
contamination in Bihar. It provides
good details about the nature and
measures of hazardous chemicals
ratio in the potable water in Bihar.
Earlier I used to work at NIT,
Patna, where I saw the real water
chemical analysis process which the
villagers use to bring for
inspection. The stories behind the
sample brought to NIT were very
annoying and sad. Some sample were
brought only after some kidney and
liver failures after water
consumption from newly dug wells and
even government installed
hand-pumps. The issue is very
serious for a poor state like ours.
Here I would like to bring another
national issue (the same water
contamination issue, different
dimension) into picture. I am
staying in Hyderabad now, which is a
metro-in-making city thanks to
various IT companies establishing
branches here. The water
contamination issue here is actually
a money-spinner for lot of
entrepreneurs. Packaged drinking
water companies are making a huge
amount of money by installing
bottling plants to prepare packaged
water. As per my own company
estimates, about 1200 bottles (40
litre capacity) are consumed by our
own company for drinking purpose.
Add three tankers of washable water
arriving at our company everyday. If
one medium-sized company is using
that much water, just imagine the
total amount being used by the IT
sector alone.
The government has left this issue
to be handled by the private parties
which has made things worse. First,
there is no control over the quality
standards. I have faced one such
incident where I threw a bottle just
before sipping it because I saw
something black, jelly-type thing
floating over it.
Another aspect is the humanity. It's
agreed that the IT companies are
capable of paying those big bucks
for potable water, but there is a
large population of poor people
which actually support these
companies and live just a few
kilometers away from the industry
area. These people have no means to
pay big money for water and
therefore are dependent upon the
SARKARI NAL for contaminated water.
Going ahead, I am sure that the
government is surely earning
revenues (official) and other
(unofficial) money from these
water-packaging companies.
Therefore, I don't see anything
being done by the government to
avoid this contamination in near
future. People would have to suffer
because there is no scope for them,
neither from the companies, who
can't stop spinning money, nor from
the government, whose authorities
are getting benefited from this
business, not the society, who won't
stop contaminating the water
resources. - Ravish Kumar,
Software Engineer, Hyderabad - Dec.
12, 2006 |
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