Beware Of That Maachh-Bhaat

Paddy Shoots, Used As Fodder, Contain Arsenic, Thus Putting At Risk Humans Who Consume The Meat/ Milk Of Cows And Goats

- Romita Datta

In Bengal, they say even the most exacting of palates can be satiated with a hearty meal of maachh-bhaat, or fish and rice. However, in a pincer attack of sorts, both face a threat of contamination by chemical poisoning. While arsenic in its inorganic form, occurring in soil and groundwater, is the blight that is poisoning varieties of paddy, mercury in water and the use of formalin are the villains infecting fish. Alarms raised in either case have failed to elicit an appropriate response.

It’s known since the 1980s that large swathes of West Bengal fall in the naturally arsenic-contaminated Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin. Groundwater infected by arsenic and its consumption has been a major health concern for long. The entry of arsenic in the food chain through its presence in paddy grain has been established in research by scientists of the School of Environmental Studies (SOES) in Jadavpur University for the past several years. Dr Tarit Roychowdhury, senior faculty member of the school and water expert, who has studied arsenic contamination in soil and water and its effects on crops and vegetables, found out that eight rice-producing districts— North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, Bardhaman, Malda and Murshidabad—lie in the state’s arsenic belt. Arsenic is listed as Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It’s linked to cancers of the skin, liver and kidney and can cause miscarriages and stillbirths. Crops contaminated with arsenic can, in the most alarming projection, slow-poison a mass of human population. Arsenic as an inorganic chemical is found in groundwater at a shallow depth of 40 metres. Most shallow tube -wells of Bengal are between 20 feet and 100 feet.