An expert panel appointed by the Centre has found to its horror that fluorosis has reached epidemic proportions in Garhwa as a result of the Jharkhand government’s negligence and failure to check the alarming spread of the disease. The team, appointed by the Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation, visited the district last month and found men, women and children of all ages with deformities due to FLUORIDE poisoning from...

Community initiative tackles perennial problem of groundwater salinity In a rare community-driven initiative, the residents of a nondescript village near Deeg in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan have solved the perennial problem of groundwater salinity by laying a one-km cement pipeline to get the Yamuna river waters from a feeder canal situated nearby. The small Madhera village had been facing difficulty in getting clean and pure water for both drinking and irrigation for...

Putting water on the Concurrent List is not necessarily an act of centralisation, though it could lead to such a development. That danger is real and needs to be avoided. The Union Ministry of Water Resources has for long been arguing for a shift of water to the Concurrent List without any serious expectation of its happening, but has now begun to pursue the idea more actively. The Ashok Chawla committee,...

For a man who’s been in the pharmaceutical business all his working life, advocating clean drinking water across the country might seem like a bad business idea. In fact, its health fallout could put me out of business. But there are times when one has to think beyond the balance sheets. Water is one issue that excites passion, yet we give very little thought to it. Those who have seen...

Leads to cancer and fluorosis that damages bones, teeth, muscles  West Bengal is the worst-affected State in terms of arsenic contamination “The problem is being ignored because those who must address it consume bottled water” About 1.80-lakh rural habitations are afflicted by poor water quality leading to serious health problems such as cancer and fluorosis that damages bones, teeth and muscles. Arsenic contamination has been reported in nine States, FLUORIDE problem in 18...