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 Malda district, one of the nine arsenic affected districts of West Bengal-India

Location and demography
The District is situated between the latitude and longitude figures of 24040’20”N to 25032’08”N and 88028’10”E to 87045’50”E respectively and surrounded by Bangladesh and South Dinajpur in the east, Santal Parganas of Jharkhand state in the west, Uttar Dinajpur in the north and Murshidabad in the south.
The district has 15 blocks, 147 GP, 1642 inhabited villages and 42 wards (in two Municipalities) in Malda district. The district has a total population of 32,90,468 inhabitants (16,89,406 males and 16,01,062 females).

Arsenic contamination status in groundwater of Malda district
To date, we have analyzed 4449 hand tubewell water samples from 325 villages / wards in 65 GPs/ Municipal area from 14 blocks. Figure I shows the Pie-diagram distribution of arsenic in tubewell water from 14 blocks of Malda district.  We found arsenic concentration above 10 µg/L in 2322 (52.2%) hand tubewells, in 1512 (34%) above 50 µg/L and 282 (6.3%) of the tubewells had arsenic concentrations above 300µg/L (Table I). 244, 209 and 66 villages contains arsenic above 10, 50 and 300 µg/L respectively and in 13, 9 and 7 blocks contains arsenic above 10, 50 and 300 µg/L respectively. In Kaliachak II block the maximum arsenic contamination level was found (1904 µg/L).

Groundwater arsenic situation and sufferings of people in Malda district

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