04/09/2022, 13:04 Effectiveness of Government Interventions to Reduce Arsenic Exposure in Punjab, India.

H107-02 - Effectiveness of Government

Interventions to Reduce Arsenic Exposure in
Punjab, India.
Friday, 11 December 2020

17:34 - 17:38

Abstract
Groundwater in the Indus basin is contaminated with geogenic and anthropogenic pollutants. This
study evaluates the access to safe water in 195 villages where a total of 11000 wells, mostly private,
were previously tested using field test kits for arsenic (As), fluoride (F), nitrate (NO3) along with pH
and electrical conductivity (EC). The state government has installed 2327 reverse osmosis (RO)
system in Punjab for safe water supply, and many smaller RO systems are used by individual
households. In order to investigate the effectiveness of these interventions, the inflow and outflow of
a subset of 108 reverse osmosis (RO) systems, including community and household RO systems
were analysed using field test kits. The performance of these kits were evaluated in the lab and
found effective in determining whether water meets World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
The composition of untreated groundwater ranged from <1 to 60 µg/L for As, <0.1-11 mg/L for F,
and 0.0-340 mg/L for NO3. The conductivity of RO inlet ranged from 0.200 to 4 mS/cm and was
higher than half that value in the outlet water of 30 out of 98 household systems and 1 out of 10
community systems, respectively. The inlet of 64 out of 108 RO systems did not meet the WHO
guideline for either As, F, or NO3. The outflow of 7 and 8, respectively, of these same 64 RO
systems did not meet the WHO guidelines for As and NO3. The results show that almost one third of
household/community RO systems are insufficiently maintained despite the fact that they were
recently installed. Mapping the allocation of community RO systems, mostly in the southern part of
the state, suggest these were politically motivated rather than by taking into account actual water
quality with respect to As, F, or NO3. An intervention such as blanket testing of well should be

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04/09/2022, 13:04 Effectiveness of Government Interventions to Reduce Arsenic Exposure in Punjab, India.

prioritized before any much costlier centralized interventions are provided to reduce exposure.

First Author

Anand Kumar
TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India

Authors

Chander K Singh
TERI School of Advanced Studies

Manpreet Singh Bhatti

Guru Nanak Dev University, Punjab, India

Brian Mailloux
Barnard College

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04/09/2022, 13:04 Effectiveness of Government Interventions to Reduce Arsenic Exposure in Punjab, India.

Tyler Ellis
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

Jacob Louis Mey

Lamont -Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

Alexander van Geen

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

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