Why invite arsenic?
Arsenic in groundwater is becoming a difficult problem in many parts of the country. Many blame Jal Nigam officials and the public engineering department for the malaise. But this is quite akin to finding convenient scapegoats when the problem is actually quite complex. The point is people need groundwater: both for drinking and for irrigation purposes.
Take the case of West Bengal. In 1959, minor-irrigation projects were started in the state in collaboration with the Exploratory Tubewell Organization of the Union government. As per the 2001 census, there are about 5, 50,000- tube wells in the state; 64 per cent of 54,640 square kilometres of cultivable land in the state is under irrigation by tubewells that tap groundwater. Irrigated farming has supported millions of people, but it has also had a horrible spin off: arsenic levels have risen in the shallow aquifers of West Bengal.
But how did irrigation cause such pollution? The rot set in because water used for farming had high levels of arsenic and the chemical accumulated in the roots of rice plants