The government provides clean piped water to every household, but villagers in Saharsa district complain that the supply is irregular and inadequate, forcing them to use groundwater laced with arsenic.
An ugly yellow stain coats water storage tanks, faucets, buckets and hand-cranked tubewells tapping underground water in Saharsa district of Bihar. Many people sport yellowish teeth. Even everyday utensils have an iridescent sheen, like multi-coloured reflections from oil on water.
The patina comes from the high concentration of iron in water drawn from underground aquifers – the main water source for the thickly populated region where people have exploited the groundwater brutally to irrigate farms and for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing.
But there is more to the water than meets the eye. It is laced with arsenic, an odourless toxin — a burning example of water pollution. Arsenic is naturally occurring and kills human cells – causing skin lesions, organ damage, heart disease and cancer. There is no cure for arsenic poisoning.
Bihar’s arsenic-tainted water is well-documented, blazing into shock-horror headlines in 2004 when every family in Simaria Ojhapatti village of Bhojpur district, 90km west of Patna, abandoned their homes and fled because of “mysterious” illnesses sweeping through the population, even causing deaths.
The cause was found and Bhojpur was declared arsenic-hit two years later, Bihar’s first district to be tagged so.
Recent studies show more than 10 million people in 13 districts of Bihar’s vast Ganga basin drink polluted water containing arsenic above the safe limit. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers arsenic concentrations above 10 micrograms per litre to be dangerous.
The numbers are shocking because every household, the Bihar government claims, is now getting treated, potable piped water through its Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal scheme – tap water for every home – launched in 2016.
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The state government said in January 2022 that the scheme, which inspired the Union government’s national Nal Se Jal and Jal Jeevan projects, has achieved its target in the state. The Bihar government returned Rs 6,000 crore of leftover federal grants for improving water systems, including laying pipes, building pump houses and treatment plants.
Still, the problem of arsenic polluting water here persists.
The goal of Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal is to supply water for two hours every morning, afternoon and evening. But taps are allocated only to earning members of a family, meaning if a household has a sole breadwinner, that home gets only one.
Mohammad Usman of Saharsa is the lone earning member in his family of six. His home has a single tap, so access to clean water is limited.
“We get water supply only for an hour or so the entire day. Sometimes not at all because of power outages. We have to depend on the tubewell,” Usman said.
There simply is no other option for Naimunnisha either. She lives in another part of Saharsa and finds it impossible to make do with “that single, unreliable source” of clean water. She turns to “the yellow groundwater” to do the dishes.
Naimunnisha said she is aware of the toxicant it contains, but “cannot afford alternative sources”.
We have been suffering for generations because of this water, which gives us rashes that itch very badly. Everyone in my family has eczema. Even the kids have it
Residents of several impoverished villages – mostly a clutch of tin-roofed huts set amid fields – don’t have money to spend on digging new wells that go deeper to reach safe water. Neither can they install expensive reverse osmosis filtration systems to protect the well water from arsenic and other contaminants.
Usually, arsenic would stay in the ground. But it had leached into the groundwater in the past decades. There are reports that the toxin has entered the food chain as well because farmers are irrigating their fields by pumping enormous volumes of polluted groundwater.
There’s fear that dust kicking up on the farms has arsenic in it and rain could wash more poison down to the aquifers.
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Arsenic poisoning has dozens of symptoms, including sores and scabs on the skin and vascular lesions that could impede blood circulation and force amputation of limbs. Cancer and other diseases attributed to arsenic poisoning are progressive.
“We have been suffering for generations because of this water, which gives us rashes that itch very badly. Everyone in my family has eczema. Even the kids have it,” said Shabnam, a 40-year-old villager, trying not to scratch the itchy sores on her arms and neck when she spoke.
Kumar Anand Raj, a physician in the area, treats about 25 patients with eczema every month.
“There are two types of skin diseases here — eczema and psoriasis. Air and environmental pollution combined with the water crisis had driven up skin diseases. The iron-laced water has fewer good minerals,” he said.
Psoriasis tends to cause milder itching. Eczema, known as atopic dermatitis, can lead some people to scratch their skin so hard that it bleeds.
Arsenic causes ailments like Bowen’s disease — an early form of skin cancer that’s treatable — even long after people stop drinking contaminated water. Researchers have found mounting cancer cases linked to arsenic in Bihar.
The government took action after alarm bells about a massive public health crisis rang out. But providing clean drinking water to the poor remains a formidable challenge.
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The lead image at the top shows children’s skin getting affected with various skin problems because of water pollution (Photo by Shaba Manzoor)
Shaba Manzoor is an independent journalist. Her stories explore the intersection of society, culture and gender.
