Delhi—a city and union territory of India containing the country’s capital, New Delhi—continues to grow in population, posing challenges to civic agencies in the provision of citizens’ essential needs.
Contamination of groundwater by arsenic and its adverse effect on human being have been reported in 20 countries in different parts of the world. Groundwater arsenic contamination has raised its ugly head recently in Assam. Arsenic concentration in groundwater samples from the three blocks viz.
The present study aims at the assessment of groundwater quality in and around the Vrishabhavathi Valley, the erstwhile fresh water stream, today carrying huge quantities of industrial, agricultural and domestic effluents from the western part of Bangalore metropolis.
Total heterotropic plate count (HPC), fecal coliform (FC), Escherichia coli (EC), Salmonella and Shigella were estimated in water samples collected from 21 bore wells and 15 hand pumps in and around Kanpur district, during early and post monsoon which revealed the unsanitary condition of water sources.
Dhaka city produces tonnes of solid wastes everyday. Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) does not have any sanitary landfill for ultimate disposal of solid waste and for a long time it is a common practice of DCC to dipose off solid waste in open low lying areas without any segregation andf soil cover.
THE Coca-Cola company and its CEO, Mr Neville Isdell, must be congratulated for some excellent public relations work lately, and in particular, in India.
The government will launch a pilot project on the public-private partnership basis for improving the public transport system of Karachi in June this year.
Mormugao Deputy Collector Levinson Martins has convened a meeting on Thursday morning, to discuss the seepage of petroleum products into two wells at Bogmalo. Stating this, Chicolna-Bogmalo Sarpanch Laxman Kavlekar told Herald that Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) officials on Wednesday claimed they had no facilities to store the petroleum that had been pumped out of two wells at Pilmad-Bogmalo. Following a complaint by Mr Kavlekar, the deputy collector had asked IOC officials to remove the petroleum product from the two wells. IOC officials undertook the operations on Saturday, but the seepage continued to take place two days later and Mr Kavlekar alleged that a third well had been contaminated in the village. "IOC officials failed to turn up to pump out the inflammable liquid on Wednesday on grounds that they did not have facilities to store the petroleum product,' Mr Kavlekar said. The sarpanch, however, admitted that the IOC had assured to resolve the problem of storage facilities at the earliest. Mr Kavlekar has now asked IOC officials to allow them to visit all eight tanks located in the naval area, which is close to the affected wells. "I have asked IOC officials to hold a joint inspection of tanks with panchayat members, to clear our doubts on whether the petroleum has seeped from the IOC tanks or from other source,' Mr Kavlekar said.
Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, is blessed with rivers. But what's the use? Each and every river and canal is filled with poisonous muck which seeps into groundwater. The Janhit Foundation in Meerut has carried out several studies which show that Uttar Pradesh's groundwater is loaded with dangerous carcinogenic chemicals. Towns and villages are becoming infamous for particular chemicals.
Unsafe for consumption: Samples of contaminated water drawn from well at a house in Sai Nagar in Thoraipakkam. Dumping of garbage in the heart of the Pallikaranai Marshland (Perungudi Dumping Yard in official parlance) and letting out of untreated sewage from different sources into the Buckingham Canal have resulted in an irreversible damage to the quality of sub-surface water in residential localities of the fast developing Thoraipakkam and Perungudi. On a visit to nearly half-a-dozen localities in Thoraipakkam on Monday, presspersons found that water drawn from domestic and deep borewells in Thoraipakkam was orange in colour and accompanied by a pungent, foul smell. Environmentalists fear that the problem is fast heading towards an unprecedented catastrophe in this part of Chennai. Residents complained that quality of water drawn from wells in Sai Nagar, Selva Ganapathy Avenue and Saravanan Nagar, among other adjoining localities, was consistently deteriorating over the past few years. Of late, the residents were forced to depend on water drawn from wells for washing clothes and cleaning utensils. Office-bearers of civic groups in Thoraipakkam attributed the problem to the dumping of garbage and the letting out of raw sewage. Residential areas in Okkiyam Thoraipakkam village panchayat and Perungudi town panchayat were the worst affected, said Periasamy, President, Sai Nagar Residents Welfare Association. At least, a few thousand wells in the areas were contaminated, a few residents of Sai Nagar said. They said while the affluent sections could afford expensive water purifying equipment, the poor were left with little option but to use the contaminated water for household purposes. In the absence of a complete, safe and protected drinking water supply scheme, even economically weaker sections have to purchase bottled water. Owing to the dumping of garbage, leachates seeped into the sub-surface and entered recharge channels through which groundwater entered the domestic and deep borewells. Leachate was caused by the percolation of waste from garbage dumped on landfill sites, said N.Srinivasan, environmentalist. The problem was not restricted to Perungudi or Thoraipakkam, but to far-off places, including Muttukadu, through which the Buckingham Canal meandered . Mr. Srinivasan said a study revealed that fishermen were deprived of their normal catch of fish as a large number of fishes died owing to the sewage content in the Kovalam creek. Mr. Periasamy said the laying of the Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Radial Road had only made it easier for rural and urban local bodies along Rajiv Gandhi Salai (formerly Old Mamallapuram Road) and East Coast Road to dump solid waste on the fringes of the marshland. Putting an end to dumping and burning of garbage and ensuring the discharge of only completely treated sewage might, to a large extent, help reverse the trend, he added.
The erratic and heavy rainfall last year has turned a large part of the deep desert country into a vast submerged landscape.
