This story is from November 28, 2020

Uttar Pradesh: Districts hit by arsenic contamination pin hope on Har Ghar Jal scheme

UP government’s Har Ghar Jal scheme has identified areas affected by arsenic and fluoride contamination where it will start the work of providing piped water by the middle of next year.
Uttar Pradesh: Districts hit by arsenic contamination pin hope on Har Ghar Jal scheme
For years, residents of east UP, living along and near the Ganga river, have been seeking the state’s intervention in providing piped water to the region. This area, including parts of neighbouring Bihar, are plagued by high level of arsenic in groundwater, a long term exposure to which can cause lesions, allergies and even cancer
LUCKNOW: UP government’s Har Ghar Jal scheme has identified areas affected by arsenic and fluoride contamination where it will start the work of providing piped water by the middle of next year.
These areas form a crucial part of the government’s plan due to the health impact of the contaminants on those who are exposed to the water over a long period of time.
For years, residents of east UP, living along and near the Ganga river, have been seeking the state’s intervention in providing piped water to the region.
This area, including parts of neighbouring Bihar, are plagued by high level of arsenic in groundwater, a long term exposure to which can cause lesions, allergies and even cancer.
Similarly, while low levels of fluoride are necessary for good dental health, excess fluoride leads to a condition called fluorosis which impacts the skeleton and in extreme cases causes spasms, vomiting and abdominal pain. In UP, the Central Ganga Alluvial region is affected by high levels of fluoride in the groundwater.
Saurabh Singh, director of Inner Voice Foundation, who has been leading a campaign against arsenic contamination for the past several years, says that despite crores of rupees spent on new infrastructure, governments have failed in stemming the problem. “It is not just Ballia or Basti where this contamination is found but also in Varanasi, Prayagraj and Lucknow. Tubewells providing water to schools in Ballia have been found to contain high levels of arsenic,” he said.

A 2011 technical report on the arsenic toxicity in the groundwater of Uttar Pradesh by the State Water Resources Data and Analysis Centre said that “harmful concentration of arsenic in ground water, exceedingly the BIS permissible limit of 0.01 mg/l, have critically spread over 144 blocks of the state located in 28 districts...Ballia and Lakhimpur Kheri are the worst affected districts with arsenic in groundwater. Ghaghra basin is the most severely arsenic affected region of the state”. The situation has only worsened since then.
In UP’s Fatehpur, young people with bent backs and twisted joints are not a strange sight. However, the story of this area, one of the many fluoride contamination affected villages of UP, is set to change with the Har Ghar Jal Yojana.
Social activist Rajendra Sahu of the Nehru Yuva Sangathan said that a visit to the fluoride affected villages may be compared to watching an alien movie.
In a 2018 study on fluoride, ‘Excessive fuoride in groundwater of Central Ganga Alluvial Plain: a case study of Fatehpur, North India’ by V Dutta, N Fatima and N Kumar, “sampling in two villages showed that 95% of the groundwater samples belong to high fluoride concentration which is responsible for the endemic dental and skeletal fluorosis in the area concerned. Agra one of the most affected areas”.
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