Page 53 - AWSAR 2.0

Geo-Microbiology of Arsenic (As) Calamity in the Gangetic Bengal Plain: A Decade of Investigation and Promises for Providing Safe Drinking Water
Dr Balaram Mohapatra*
Email: balarammohapatra09@gmail.com
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Gentlemen, it is the microbes who will have the last say by Louis Pasteur reminds the significance of microorganisms
in shaping the environment of our green planet. Truly, the saying is the absolute truth in the context of the role of microorganisms in arsenic (As) calamity of the Bengal plain and around the world.
In the 1980s, people from West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh switched their water supply from surface waters to groundwater to have relief from waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea. As many as 10 million wells were installed for drinking, irrigation and other domestic purposes, but without testing the quality of the groundwater. In December 1983, two daily newspapers (Anandabazar and The Statesman) publicly reported the
contamination of the toxic metalloid As in the groundwater of Bengal, where 63 patients from two districts were severely affected by As toxicity (arsenicosis). By the twentieth to the twenty-first century, 10 districts (114 blocks) of West Bengal, other Indian states (Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, etc.) and many South-Eastern Asiatic countries (Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and Thailand) were severely affected by groundwater As contamination (World Health Organization) limit of 5 μg/L As threatening the lives of millions of people. Each year, many new cases of As toxicity in people, food grains, cattle feed, etc. are reported, but the situation is far worse in West Bengal, India and Bangladesh, where more than 70 million people are at increased health risk
* Dr Balaram Mohapatra, Post Doctoral Fellow from Indian Institutes of Technology, Bombay, is pursuing his research on “Aromatics and Plastic Biodegradation and Metabolic Engineering”. His popular science story entitled “Geo- Microbiology of Arsenic (As) Calamity in the Gangetic Bengal Plain: A Decade of Investigation and Promises for Providing Safe Drinking Water” has been selected for AWSAR Award.