Punjab water 'is risk to health'

By Sunil Raman
BBC News, Delhi

Contaminated water has polluted drinking supplies, the study says

High levels of ground water contamination in the north Indian state of Punjab are causing DNA to mutate in people, according to a study.

Research over a two-year period found that poisonous pesticides and heavy metals had entered the food chain.

This had caused a high prevalence of congenital deformities, cancer and kidney damage, the study said.

It was commissioned by the Punjab Water Pollution Control Board, which told the BBC it was studying the findings.

Mercury and arsenic

The report - by a team of senior doctors from the post-graduate Institute of Medical Education in Chandigarh - was conducted over the past two years.

It linked contaminated water with varying degrees of DNA mutation in people in the state.

According to the study, 80% of ground water samples had mercury that was far beyond the permissible level.

Arsenic was found in 70% of samples of effluent, 50% of tap water samples and 57.7% of ground water samples.

A high degree of pesticides had contaminated water in drains in parts of Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Nawanshahr.

The study says that blood samples collected from people in the area showed that in 65% of the cases the DNA had mutated.

Recommendations

The chairman of the Water Pollution Control Board, Yogesh Goel, told the BBC that the recommendations had to be "debated and discussed".

Mr Goel said that the "industry was not just to blame, the overuse of pesticides was another reason. We have to ascertain reasons for it".

Apart from studying the quality of water close to major drains in which effluents were discharged, the study also looked at the health profile of people in settlements close to these drains.

The pollution control chief said the board would study the report and make its recommendations to the government.

He said the study had recommended constant monitoring of water supply and sewerage, involvement of village councils in the treatment and disposal of solid waste, and the need for industries to adopt new technology in extracting ground water.

The state has begun implementing a World Bank project to improve water supply and sanitation in the state.