Guwahati, Oct. 7: The Arsenic Knowledge and Action Network will undertake activities in Assam to collate information on arsenic contamination and chalk out an action plan for arsenic mitigation.
The network, a knowledge-driven collective of individuals and organisations formed in October last year, is anchored by South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), a Secunderabad-based non-profit organisation.
As part of the planned activities, the network will conduct a reconnaissance around the state to study the existing communication methods being adopted to spread consciousness among exposed communities about arsenic, which is a public health hazard. The exercise, to be conducted in October and November, will include a team of communication experts and ground-level practitioners.
Among other activities, the network also plans to organise a series of district-level knowledge-sharing workshops with the aim of collating the extensive information and studies that have been conducted by various researchers and bring it on a common platform.
They plan to start work on meeting researchers and ground-level workers throughout the state from October.
A roundtable was organised by the network at IIT Guwahati recently to give direction to arsenic-mitigation activities in Assam.
It also addressed knowledge gaps and consolidating activities to be undertaken by the network. Officials from the public health engineering department (PHED), health department, Unicef, IIT Guwahati, civil society organisations, experts and researchers attended the roundtable.
Ashok Kumar Das, secretary, PHED, underlined the need for different government sectors, civil society organisations and experts to come together to tackle the menace.
He also acknowledged the need for the department to share the existing data on arsenic contamination with researchers and practitioners to enable arsenic mitigation efforts in the state.
“The network is a pan-India entity that aims to work in various other arsenic-affected states. In Assam, the issue of arsenic contamination has been taken up at the state level since the past year. For its part, the network has endeavoured to create a platform for bringing experts and policy makers to share knowledge about the problem and find out ways to mitigate it,” Karthik Seshan, a research associate with SaciWATERs, told The Telegraph.
“Based on the information we collate, an action plan will be prepared. We will also prepare a training design for stakeholders including engineers, NGOs, medical practitioners, teachers and students to engage them in the mitigation process,” Seshan said.
A precursor to a state of sector report for Assam was presented at the roundtable.
“There are significant knowledge gaps and more Assam-specific inputs required to make the report anything close to exhaustive. It is imperative for more people who have done studies on arsenic-related issues in Assam to come forward and contribute to the process,” he said.
Asked about arsenic contamination in other states of the Northeast, he said, “We have come to know that arsenic has been detected in Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. Therefore, these states will be on our agenda after Assam.”
survey details
Arsenic contamination
Blocks surveyed: 102 in 27 districts
BIS’s permissible limit: 50 parts per billion
Blocks with contamination above limit: 76 in 18 districts Screening programme
Contaminated water sources: 30% of 56180
Contaminated habitations: 1970
Arsenic-affected sources in schools: 794
