20 p c of ARWSP funds for states lacking quality water

New Delhi, Dec 13 (UNI) The Government today said 20 per cent of the funds under the revised sub-mission programme of the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) would be released to state governments having water quality problems, particularly high arsenic content.

Stating this, Minister of State for Rural Development Suryakanta Patil told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that "high levels of arsenic content is found in drinking water sources in rural areas of West Bengal, Bihar, Asom, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Jharkhand based on the information updated on April 1, 2006." She said water is a state subject and state governments were primarily responsible for providing potable drinking water to rural habitations.

To tackle water quality problems due to chemical contamination, including excess arsenic problems, she said the quality of drinking water was being periodically monitored for various parameters including fluoride.

The Minister said as per the water quality survey ordered in March 2000, 17 states were affected with excess fluoride in drinking water and consumption of this water over a prolonged period may lead to fluorosis.

To another question, she said 17 states were affected with excess iron in drinking water in four districts in Rajasthan, 22 in Asom and all 30 districts in Orissa.

"A community based National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Programme has been launched in the country which aims at testing various parameters including fluoride for all drinking water sources by the grass root level workers in each panchayat with simple-to-use field test kits.

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