Ganga-Meghna Brahmaputra || West Bengal || Bangladesh || Middle Ganga Plain, Bihar || Uttarpradesh
Jharkhand || North-East Hilly States || Rajnandgaon, Chattisgarh || Behala, Kolkata, WB || As toxicity- Homeopathic Treatment
Effectiveness & Reliability - As Field Testing Kits || Utility Of Treatment Plant
Causes, Effects & Remedies - Groundwater As Calamity || References

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Groundwater Arsenic contamination in West Bengal-India (20 years study )

Reported work done by SOES

Groundwater arsenic contamination status of North 24-Parganas district, one of the nine arsenic affected districts of West Bengal-India

Location and demography
North 24 Parganas is situated in the southern part of the Bengal Basin. The geographical extent of the district lies between 88⁰19^/ E, 23⁰20^/ N to 89⁰10^/ E, 22⁰01^/ N. The district consists of 22 blocks. Officially there are 1582 inhabited villages in North 24 Parganas district. But during our survey we found 1515 villages/wards in this district. There are 679 Municipal areas (known as wards) in North 24 Parganas district. Extending over an area of 4094 km², the district has 89,34,286 inhabitants (46,38,756 are males and 42,95,530 females).

Arsenic contamination status in groundwater of North 24 Parganas district
To date, we have analyzed 54368 hand tubewell water samples from 2848 villages/wards from 312 GPs/ Municipal area of all 22 blocks of North 24 Parganas. Table I below shows the distribution of arsenic in tubewell water samples from North 24 Parganas district. Figure I shows the groundwater arsenic contamination status in all 22 blocks of North 24 Parganas with Pie-diagram distribution. Arsenic concentration above 10 µg/L was observed in 29023 (53.4%) hand tubewells and above 50 µg/L in 16020 (29.5%) and 1834 (3.4%) of the tubewells had arsenic concentrations above 300µg/L.  2127, 1481 and 398 villages contained arsenic above 10, 50 and 300 µg/L respectively and in 22, 21 and 16 blocks arsenic above 10, 50 and 300 µg/L was noted respectively.
Only one block “Sandeshkhali-II” was arsenic safe according to Indian standard (50µg/L) and in Sandeshkhali-I only 0.6% tubewells exceeds 50µg/L. The probable reason may be, in Sandeshkhali-I and Sandeshkhali-II, most of the tubewells were deep tubewells. Shallow tubewells are saline, so people do not construct shallow tubewells. Due to the same reason we could not find arsenic in the southern part of Hingalganj block as all the tubewells were of higher depth. But we found arsenic in the northern part of Hingalganj block as it is close to Hasnabad block where shallow tubewells with sweet water are available.  Arsenic level above 1000µg/L was found in 49 tubewells; the maximum arsenic contamination level found in this district is 2830µg/L in the Baduria block.

Groundwater arsenic situation and sufferings of people in North 24-Parganas district

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