By Soudhriti Bhabani, IANS,
Kolkata : Kartik Biswas, a research scholar working on environmental issues, did not know the fatal effect of arsenic contamination. By the time he realised it, he had already lost six members of his family, including his parents.
All of them suffered from arsenic contamination and died of cancer. Kartik and his sister, who hail from Nadia district in West Bengal, were the only ones in their family who survived.
This is not an isolated case of arsenic contamination in the rural districts of West Bengal.
Even as World Environment Day is observed June 5, an estimated 6.5 million people in this eastern state continue to be at risk due to the presence of high level of arsenic in the ground water they drink everyday.
“The first case of arsenic (contamination) was detected in the state in 1983. Since then, lot of efforts have been made in the rural districts to combat the environmental menace. But, I personally feel our achievement is minimal,” Director (Research) of Jadavpur University’s School of Environmental Studies Dipankar Chakraborty told IANS.
Of the state’s 18 districts, nine – Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Howrah, Burdwan, Purulia and Hooghly – face this problem, with nearly 300,000 people already suffering from arsenic related diseases.
“Despite twenty years of research and preventive activities, the problem has not been eradicated from rural Bengal. Many villagers are still unaware of the fact that they are drinking contaminated water, which is responsible for their skin lesions,” he said.
Arsenic is a carcinogen that causes many cancers including skin, lung, and bladder as well as cardiovascular diseases. A study conducted last year revealed that over 137 million people in over 70 countries are affected by arsenic.
“Previously, it was thought skin cancer is a common type of cancer caused by arsenic. But lung, liver, colon, bladder cancers have also been found among those affected from chronic arsenic toxicity,” he said.
Chakraborty regretted that the arsenic story has turned menacing due to negligence and lack of proper controlling mechanism. Infants and children were at greater risk as they consume more water as compared to their body weight.
He said about two million children in the state are drinking water that contains more than the maximum permissible limit (50µg/l) set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for arsenic.
The West Bengal government has started setting up 20 NGO managed arsenic testing laboratories in the districts in collaboration with voluntary organisations and international forums to control the problem.
The government has also prepared a “Master Plan” for arsenic mitigation in the state and received a grant of Rs.22 billion from the central government for implementing it.
West Bengal public health engineering (PHE) department has initiated water supply schemes in the arsenic affected districts to serve around 2.9 million people. As a medium term option, the government has also installed 8,037 deep hand pumps in affected areas to provide drinking water to about 2.41 million people.
But, the question still remains – “Are the people in West Bengal’s rural areas drinking the water of death?”
Over the past two decades, a team of 15 researchers from Jadavpur University has been involved in the task of surveying the magnitude of the arsenic problem in rural areas of West Bengal.
“We have analysed 128,303 water samples from nine arsenic affected districts by Flow Injection Hydride Generation. Out of the total samples analysed, 50 percent are unsafe to drink according to WHO recommended value of arsenic in drinking water (recommended value is 10 µg/l) and 26.7 percent contains arsenic above WHO maximum permissible limit.
“So far we have identified 3,285 villages from 85 blocks in nine affected districts where ground water contains arsenic above 50 µg/l,” Chakraborty said.