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Water Contamination: INTEGRATED STRATEGY MUST, By Dhurjati Mukherjee, 24 March, 2015 Print E-mail

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New Delhi, 24 March 2015

Water Contamination

INTEGRATED STRATEGY MUST

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

 

The Parliamentary Estimates Committee has criticized the Centre for neglecting the serious issue of water contamination that impacts at least 7 crores (70 million) people across six States. The report aptly recommended setting up a national task force on a time-bound basis that would work on a mission mode on the issue. It also recommended for a Central fund allocation for the purpose.

 

The report stated: “...only after the matter has been taken up by the (Estimates) committee, a Core Committee headed by the director, National Institute of Hydrology has recommended in its report submitted on October 15, 2014 that each affected State should have an Arsenic Task Force, spearheaded by the model National Arsenic Mission Task Force at the Central level.”  Though the report was tabled last December, precious little has been done.  

 

Indeed, it is a disastrous portrayal of the state of water contamination across the country. It was quite obvious that the parliamentary panel suggested scrapping of ‘relaxed’ permissible limit for arsenic in drinking water and directed that the WHO recommended norms should be strictly adhered to.  

 

Meanwhile, though the Cabinet approved setting up an international Centre for drinking water quality in Kolkata and the news was welcomed by hydrologists and social scientists, specially in eastern India and Bangladesh, not much has progressed since the announcement about a year ago. The Centre is expected to conduct extensive research and training and advice all the South Asian neighbours and other nations as well on water-related issues. The institution has been tasked with research on drinking water technologies, health impacts of water contamination with special emphasis on arsenic and fluoride and the chemistry of sediments. Obviously, it would coordinate with other scientific institutions and universities who have already been working on these problems.   

 

As is well known, vast tracts of Bengal, the rest of eastern India and Bangladesh have unacceptably high levels of arsenic in their groundwater. Around ten million people are exposed to excess arsenic in Bengal and six other States. The situation as regards fluoride contamination is more severe as 19 States have excess fluoride in their groundwater. Around 10 million Indians are exposed to excess fluoride in these States.

 

A recent study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) found that Salmonelia typhi, a water-borne bacterium that causes jaundice hepatitis and could also lead to gall bladder cancer was rampant in water sources of Kolkata and other neighbouring areas. The bacterium infects the gall bladder, gets deposited there and often flourishes in the alkaline fluid generated from the organ.   

 

More than 50 million people – almost all of them living in rural habitations – lacked routine access to safe drinking water, as per Government estimates way back in April 2012 though unofficial figures are presently much higher. The new Centre is expected to tackle the problem and concentrate primarily on rural areas though its activities will also cover urban drinking water issues. It may be mentioned here that though India’s cities and towns have municipal water supply lines, microbial contamination leads to outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as rotavirus infections among children and hepatitis A and hepatitis E among adults.   

 

As is generally agreed, the source of arsenic is of geological origin and has been manifest in the fluvial tracks of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Barak valley. There are a number of hypotheses about the source of arsenic and probable reasons of occurrence in groundwater. As mentioned earlier, seven States namely Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Chhattisgarh and, of course, Wst Bengal have so far been reported to be affected by arsenic contamination in groundwater above the permissible limit of 50 mg/l.       

 

Though over the past three decades since arsenic contamination first surfaced in the year 1983, a number of precautionary measured have been initiated, specially in Bengal. However, with every new survey, more affected villages, people suffering from arsenic related diseases are being reported, and the problem resolving issues are getting complicated due to diverse suggestions, most of which are not quite practical and relevant. Scientists, as also social scientists have become quite scared of the growing problem, as it has been spreading fast.

 

As regards fluoride contamination in groundwater is concerned, the most affected States are Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. While in Rajasthan and Gujarat all districts except one are affected in Andhra Pradesh 17 districts bear the brunt. Others where the problem is quite severe are Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu. As per latest estimate, about 203 districts in 20 States of the country are affected with fluorine contamination. Around 62 million people in these States, including six million children below the age of 14, live under this ominous shadow.      

 

Rajasthan has been the State most severely affected by high fluoride. Here, the distribution of fluoride was earlier found in 11 districts (Gupta, 1993).  As is well known, the State has an arid climate with variable annual rainfall. In Sirohi district, fluoride concentrations up to 16 mg L-1 have been found in groundwater from dug wells and boreholes at depths between 25 m and 75 m during geochemical exploration for uranium (Maithani et. al., 1998).  It has been pointed out that “the association of fluoride-endemic areas with bedrock geology is often obscure” and, as such, it is difficult to discern “whether anomalies are related to primary bedrock or secondary enrichment in the sediments”.     

 

The problem is thus highly critical not just because of the enormity of the effects of contamination but also because water-borne diseases have been increasing at a rapid pace. The consumption of polluted water from the Ganga, which is wrongly taken to be pure, contained traces of heavy metal deposits including molybdenum, mercury and lead and this lead to various diseases. This obviously affects the poor and the economically weaker sections that are exposed to unsafe water and later do not have access and financial strength for proper treatment.      

 

There can be no doubt that the problem resolving areas seemed to be partial and inadequate which need to be strengthened by scientific intervention. Moreover, advancement in understanding of geochemical and mobilization processes, devising satisfactory removal filters, identification of shortfalls in operation and removal of arsenic techniques, delineation of risk free deeper aquifers as an alternate source of groundwater, developing surface water based water supply schemes in arsenic affected areas have been reported and these should lead towards evolving a comprehensive scientific framework in this regard.

  

Keeping in view the dimension of the problem of water contamination and its disastrous effect on human health, specially those living in rural areas and belonging to the poor and the impoverished sections, the proposed Centre should be a step in the right direction. Such a Centre should have been started long back more so keeping in view the recent parliamentary panel report. It goes without saying that the Government cannot escape its responsibility of providing safe and potable water to 7 crore Indians, which is their fundamental right. ---INFA

 

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

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