No improvement in arsenic situation: HRW

There is no improvement in arsenic situation in Bangladesh in comparison to the mid nineties when the presence of arsenic in the country’s rural groundwater drew attention of international community, said US-based rights organisation Human Rights Watch in a report published on Wednesday.
The report ‘Nepotism and Neglect: The Failing Response to Arsenic in the Drinking Water of Bangladesh’s Rural Poor’ blamed corruption, political nepotism and government’s in difference to the issue for the problem.
An estimated 20 million people in Bangladesh, mostly rural poor, still drink water contaminated over the national standard of 50 micrograms per litre, the report said.
Referring to a study, it added that about 43,000 people died of arsenic related diseases each year in Bangladesh.
HRW prepared the report interviewing 134 people at five villages, government officials and staff of nongovernmental organisations and analysing data regarding approximately 125,000 government tube-wells installed between 2006 and 2012.
The government identifies people with arsenic-related illnesses primarily by skin lesions, although vast majority of arsenic-related patients do not develop them, the report said.
It said that people exposed to arsenic were at significant risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and lung disease as a result, but many received no health care.
The report said that the government, international donors, and nongovernmental organisations oversaw a concerted effort to mitigate arsenic contamination in groundwater between 1999 and 2006 but since then such efforts had dissipated.
‘Bangladesh isn’t taking basic, obvious steps to get arsenic out of the drinking water of millions of its rural poor,’ HRW senior researcher Richard Pearshouse said at a press conference at the National Press Club.
Common people do not get the benefit of better drinking water sources as politicians allocate deep tube-wells to their supporters and allies instead of the common people.
The report also found a serious lack of monitoring and quality control in arsenic mitigation projects.
It suggested that the World Bank should investigate if the 13,000 rural wells, installed in 2004-2010 on its funding, were contaminated.
Answering to newsmen at a separate press conference at the health ministry, health services director general Deen Mohd Noorul Huq, however, claimed that his department was unaware about preparing any such report.
‘It is true that we are at risk, but infection is not so high…We suggest the people at risk to drink surface water after boiling,’ he said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net