Excerpts:
Patna: English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s adage “Water, water, everywhere, not any drop to drink” is proving literally true with more and more people of Bihar being deprived of easy access to potable water.
Even as the people celebrated the World Water Day on Tuesday, little efforts have been made so far by the authorities concerned for fulfilling the ever-increasing demand of water for domestic, irrigational and industrial needs, feel environmentalists. Though the state is supposed to have a huge resource of surface as well as ground water, people of the state are facing the problems of both quantity as well as quality in as far as the availability of water is concerned. Indiscriminate use of water resources for various purposes has not only made the resources “stressed” but also resulted in deterioration of the quality of water.
Most water resources of the state are gradually becoming unfit for human consumption and other domestic uses and people are compelled to consume contaminated water in different parts of the state.
… With a total of 18 districts in Bihar located in the flood plains of the Ganga, arsenic groundwater pollution is expected in all these districts. The districts where excess fluoride has been detected in groundwater include Bhagalpur, Nawada, Jamui, Munger, Gaya and Araria, adds Singh.