Statesman News Service
MALDA, June 20: People in remote villages under Kaliachak I, II and III block areas are still suffering from cancer after drinking arsenic contaminated ground level water. Though the state with the help of central government's financial assistance has set up arsenic free water treatment plant at Dariapur in Kaliachak III and distributing purified waters in its commendable areas over the past few years but still many remote villages have been left out. Giving this information, the CPI-M MLA Mr Biswanath Ghosh informed about the plight of those people in his Assembly segment to the subject committee members of public health engineering (PHE) yesterday. The CPI-M MLA Mr Biswanath Ghosh also claimed before the subject committee that at least 60 persons have died due to arsenic contamination over the past few years in left out villages. It may be noted that four members of the PHE subject committee under the chairmanship of Mr Manas Mukherjee held a meeting with the district administrative officials to review the situation of this district identified as arsenic hit zone. Citing an example of Samir Saha, resident of Naldahari village, near Gopalganj in Kaliachak I block, though Mr Ghosh claimed the death report of 60 persons but the administration admitted only one death report due to arsenic. “It is interesting that the cause of cancer is due to drinking of ‘daily dose of poison’, arsenic contaminated water, here but medically death report of arsenic patients is being made due to cancer at their last stage. As a result, there is no death report of huge patients due to arsenic contamination officially”, said a medical officer. According to the CPI (M) MLA, Mr Biswanath Ghosh, like Samir Saha several people are suffering from cancer due to ‘arsenicosis’ at many villages like Sahabanchak, Sahabazpur, Chandpur, Karali Chandpur, Khas Chandpur and other villages in Kaliachak areas. After setting up big arsenic free water treatment plant in Kaliachak III, based on Ganges, when the PHE could not supply purified waters through pipeline to those remote villages, the department had launched awareness campaigning for alternative method to drink water with the help of UNISEF. But the arsenic contamination problem is still there in the left out villages in Kaliachak areas. ###
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