An Appeal

Arsenic problem in West Bengal & Bangladesh caught the attention of the scientific community & the media alike from the early 1990s. Even in the new millennium, the problem remains untamed to a large extent probably due to the lack of a technology that can address this problem at its root cause resulting in a sustained solution. The common people remain to be the helpless sufferers. So, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission, having its Head Quarters at Barrackpore, West Bengal, India was thinking of doing something for these unfortunate people of the Nadia & North 24 Parganas of West Bengal. There are other districts also, where this problem persists. But RKVM has stronghold in these two districts & wanted to initiate their work here.

Back in 2004, RKVM provided infrastructural facility to a consortium of Indian & European Institutes at its Kasimpore centre to work upon a Pilot project funded by European Union (TiPOT). A sustainable technology for treating the aquifer itself for removing arsenic was experimented here. No chemical filters were used or no toxic sludge was generated in the process. Once it produced desirable result, the consortium took part in the Development Marketplace Global Competition of the World Bank in 2006. The then Honorary Registrar of RKVM-IAS, Mrs. Angana Dutta presented the proposal to the DM authority that considered the proposal to be truly innovative & honoured it as one of the Winners among 2,525 other proposals submitted from all around the World. The fund was released in five installments from July 2007 to December 2008. RKVM executed the work by recruiting research assistants, engineers, supervisors & plumbers especially for this project. Also, RKVM had constant interaction with the four European advisors viz Queen's University, Belfast, Universidad Miguel Hernandez, Spain, Leiden University, The Netherlands & Stuttgart University, Germany. Dr Bhaskar Sen Gupta of QUB was one of the main guiding agents in both the TiPOT project & this World Bank project.

Under this particular project, RKVM has installed six Subterranean Arsenic Removal plants - two in Nadia district & four in North 24 Parganas. All of them are presently running very well & delivering water at their fullest capacity. At present, RKVM is regularly supervising the plants & is running them initially at its own cost. The scientific data show promising results. The most important thing regarding this project is that, it works and that too at a very low running cost.

These projects have generated great hopes among the people of these areas & the situation demands that we undertake more of this type of work in other needy areas of West Bengal in association with the funding agencies who are primarily focusing in the health & environmental sectors. RKVM is a charitable non profit organisation that has won National Award thrice for societal causes. It has the ability and infrastructure to provide every support & enough man power to carry on this project in its second phase with the valuable experience it has gained from the first phase of this extraordinary work.

RKVM takes this opportunity with great pleasure to express its high appreciation & deep gratitude to the World Bank authority for supporting the noble cause and to those friends who helped it to implement this project.

With grateful thanks to everybody,

Swami Nityananda

Secretary, RKVM

Dated: 5th March, 2009