Parties promise Arsenic free water

Political parties have to cater to an unusual demand in Eastern UP which is of safe and arsenic free drinking water, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 5, 2007, 23:17:22 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, Ramgarh (Ballia)

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When the political parties came for campaign on the banks of river Ganga in eastern UP, they came across banners and posters of an unusual demand --- 'safe and arsenic free drinking water'.

Quick to bank on a political issue, they acceded to the demand and had it in their manifestos. But were fast to admit it would not be an easy 'promise' to keep.

"The entire underground water is laced with Arsenic. Providing a solution is a challenge and I am sure to meet this challenge," said BJP candidate from Doaba assembly segment Bharat Singh.

The enormity of the task could be gauged from a two-year long Jadavpur University survey conducted by Dr Dipankar Chatterjee. The samples from 4,780 tube-wells on the banks of river Ganga in the 100-kilometre stretch found Arsenic exceeding the prescribed limit of 10 mug/litre (million unit grams per litre) in 46.5 per cent samples. In 26.5 per cent samples, Arsenic was found to be more than 50 mug/l and in case of 10 per cent it was as high as 300 mug/l. The highest quantity of Arsenic was found to be 3192 mug/l.

In the 989 villages in the belt, Chatterjee found about 20 per cent of the population to be suffering with extreme Arsenic skin diseases like lesions.

"Arsenic neuropathy and adverse obstetric was also observed due to severe exposure," Chatterjee said, in the survey report.

Villagers in Ramgarh, one of the most adversely affected villages, claim that signs of Arsenic deposits in body are witnessed in about 98 per cent of the population. "Every family in the village has seen an Arsenic related death," said Nand Lal Pandey, whose father died of the Arsenic related disease last year.

The situation is no better in the nearby villages like Dhalan Chapra, Panchrukiya and Rajpur Akona where over 60 per cent of villagers are suffering from Arsenic related diseases. "What can we do? Our protests have fallen on deaf years," alleged Kamatak Pandey of Dhalan Chapra.

Nand Lal gives a political tinge to the issue by saying, "No one can get vote on mandir or masjid or crime here. We will vote for Arsenic free water".

Amin Chand Misra, whose young body also shows signs of lesions, say they have no option but to drink Arsenic laced water. Attempt of UP Jal Nigam to find an alternative safe drinking water in many of the villages has failed. "A bore well was dug up but the water had high quantity of Arsenic and bacteria," said Tadkeshwar Nath Tiwari, the village headman of Tiwari Tola. A UP Jal Nigam official in Ballia admitted of
the problem and said only 250 bore wells have been replaced since the problem arose and cited financial constraints for the slow progress.

If the Congress candidate from Doaba Manoj Singh is to be believed, there will be no shortage of funds. "I will get the requisite amount of money from the Central government for providing safe water," he assured.

Bharat Singh was also not far behind. "If we come to power, I will ensure that the BJP government in Lucknow provides Arsenic free water in my constituency," he promised.

For locals such promises are not new. Therefore, they have demanded in writing from the contestants the time in which Arsenic free water is provided to the thousands of villages in the belt. Not many have come forth. And, it explains the enormity and daunting task ahead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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