A caution unheeded
The Integrated Environmental Programme on Heavy Metals project, 1979, set up by the government of India, collected a large amount of data on heavy metals in air, water, food and human blood samples from a network of stations distributed throughout India and summarised the findings as follows;
- Cadmium, lead, zinc, manganese, nickel, copper and chromium in air samples of most stations are within World Health Organisation (WHO) limits, but in certain areas the level of high particulate matter were higher than the permissible limit;
- Cadmium, lead, zinc, manganese, chromium contents were found to be above WHO safety levels in many water samples;
- Cadmium, lead, zinc, manganese, chromium contents in food were high from the point of view of human health;
- High levels of cadmium and lead in human blood.
However, the project did not include the "hot spots' of heavy metal pollution in India. Also, it did not look into heavy metals in soils and sediments, which receive the contaminants from air and water and pump the same into plants and animals and ultimately reach the food chain.