A Dugwell Program to Provide Arsenic-Safe Water in West Bengal, India: Preliminary Results

Abstract

In 1982, Dr. K. C. Saha, a dermatologist of Calcutta, West Bengal, identified patients with skin lesions from the district of 24 Parganas, leading him and others to search for a cause. The cause was soon identified to be arsenic in drinking water, but even today, 20 years later, large number of people continue to drink arsenic contaminated water and patients are increasing in number. Project Well is a program chosen for implementation in some villages of North 24 Parganas. Arsenic safe drinking water is provided for adopted villages by constructing shallow, concrete dugwells designed to tap the water of the unconfined aquifer, 20-30 feet below ground level, that contains low levels (<0.05 mg/L) of arsenic in the target region. The traditional dugwell design is modified by use of tube well hand pumps to withdraw water. The project includes community involvement, *Correspondence: Meera M. Hira Smith, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA. E-mail: mmhsmith@uclink.berkeley.edu. MARCEL DEKKER, INC. • 270 MADISON AVENUE • NEW YORK, NY 10016programs to increase awareness of the need to drink arsenic safe water, and training in monitoring of dugwell water for arsenic and harmful pathogens. Disinfecting of the water and regulating the water hazard diagram are also included in the training program. The plan is to make the system sustainable at the village level using indigenous labor and materials.

High arsenic contamination in drinking water hand-pumps in Khap Tola, West Champaran, Bihar, India

“…After initial sampling from 6 panchayats and analysis at department of Earth Sciences, IIT Mumbai, suggested that one of the villages Khap Tola had a high arsenic contamination with 3 samples having arsenic greater than 50 ppb, which was 40 times more than the WHO prescribed limits of 10 ppb. Analysis of samples from drinking water hand-pumps in the study area, revealed that more than 50% of the hand-pumps having arsenic greater than 200 ppb were private owned and lying in the shallow aquifer zone of 15-35 m. This finding is similar to other studies in West Bengal and Bangladesh (Smith et al, 2003;. Though the government installed hand-pumps for people to get clean pathogen-free drinking water, it had a disadvantage of subjecting the population to arsenic contaminated water.…”

“…The last 20-30 years, there has seen an increase use of groundwater for drinking purposes in rural areas (Jakariya et al, 2003). As the government hand-pumps became popular, due to their lowcost and easy accessibility and use; a number of private providers began to install hand-pumps to provide households with drinking water (Smith et al, 2003).…”