Open Forum
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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