Vision into Mission- Groundwater arsenic menace

‘Vision into Mission` for Mitigation and Remedy of Ground Water Arsenic Menace in India was jointly organized byCentral Ground Water Board (CGWB) and National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) under the aegis of the Ministry of Water Resources


The Dialogue Initiation Meet was aimed to discuss following aspects:

(i) Up to date status of arsenic menace in India;

(ii) State-of-the-art scientific knowledgebase, understanding and technologies available from both national and international perspectives;

(iii) Technologies in place;

(iv) Preventive and corrective measures taken so far and results thereof;

(v) Shortcomings, and possibility of employing success stories of one region to another region;

(vi) Further works to be undertaken;

(vii) Roadmap to achieve the targeted milestones; and

(viii) Framework of activities to be taken up, etc.

In the background there was a ‘ Vision Document’ which was jointly prepared by the CGWB and the NIH, Roorkee, with the following desired goals:

(a) To make arsenic contaminated aquifers conducive to preserve groundwater quality and produce arsenic-free groundwater to meet drinking and irrigation demands;

(b) To find sustainable techniques and technologies for decontamination of aquifers from arsenic and for the removal of arsenic from contaminated water;

(c) To scale up scope for unveiling alternate sources of water to meet the demand of potable water in the arsenic affected and vulnerable areas;

(d) To eradicate health hazards, Caused by ingestion of arsenic contaminated water; and

(e) To make society responsive to unconscious usages of water.

The milestones to achieve the targeted goals were categorized as:

(i) R & D works to be undertaken to reach at logical solutions to the arsenic calamity;

(ii) Immediate measures to provide arsenic free potable water to the people in the arsenic vulnerable areas;

(iii) Activities to be undertaken for Capacity Building and Social Empowerment; and

(iv) Revisit to revise the National Standard for arsenic in drinking water.