📰 Supreme Court orders Centre to implement draft Cauvery Management Scheme
The court finds draft scheme in conformity with Section 6A of Inter-State River Water Disputes Act.
•The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Central government to implement its draft Cauvery Management Scheme after finding it in consonance with its February 16 judgment.
•The court also found the draft scheme in conformity with Section 6A of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act.
•The judgment, given by A.M. Khanwilkar, also found no point in pursuing a contempt action against the Centre for not framing the draft scheme within deadline given in the February 16 judgment, saying the lapse was due to circumstances beyond the Centre’s grasp.
📰 A chance in Srinagar: On Ramzan ceasefire
The Prime Minister must take political ownership of the Centre’s Ramzan ceasefire
•The Centre’s announcement of a cessation of operations in Jammu and Kashmir during the month of Ramzan is a welcome step. The direction to the security forces not to launch operations in the State during this period, while allowing them to reserve “the right to retaliate if attacked or if it is essential to protect the lives of innocent people”, is aimed at bringing respite to the Valley after two years of escalated violence, since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen ‘commander’ Burhan Wani in July 2016. The decision came days after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti informed the Centre that an all-party meeting had called for a ceasefire. The quick response will help her recover some equilibrium politically, and get an administrative grip on the street. In this current phase of violence in the Valley, there has been a marked increase in home-grown militancy. All too often, the funeral of a local militant has become the rallying point for anti-state protests, which lead to new recruitment. The ceasefire will limit such occasions. The stone-pelting protests too have taken their toll and deepened alienation. The cessation of cordon-and-search operations is a high-risk initiative — but it is the very riskiness of the gesture that could invite confidence among local groups to consider ways and means to mark an end to the violent couple of years.
•A series of calibrated complementary steps are required if any lasting contribution to improving the situation on the ground is to be made. Importantly, the announcement came just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Srinagar on Saturday, and his remarks will be closely tracked. The ceasefire has brought back memories of the 2000 Ramzan effort of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. That initiative set in motion a series of developments towards dialogue, despite the still-fresh wounds of the 1999 Kargil conflict. There are parallels between those days and today. In terms of violence, Kashmir is quickly spiralling out of control to the level seen 15 years ago. Even as the security forces have gunned down 64 suspected terrorists in 2018, a large number of young Kashmiris have taken up arms. According to the latest data from the State police, 69 local youth have joined militancy, 35 of them in the wake of the April 1 operations in which 13 locals were killed. But just a temporary halt to security operations in Kashmir is not enough. At best, it can be the first step in a long and difficult road to recovery, and eventually peace. Currently, the 2003 ceasefire on the Pakistan border is in tatters. It must be urgently restored. But most important, a political outreach, possibly unconditional, is required to help Kashmir get back to normal. As Mr. Vajpayee did back then, Mr. Modi must take political ownership of the outreach. Else, the Ramzan ceasefire could remain an isolated outreach.
📰 EU moves to save Iran nuclear deal
Commission takes steps to shield EU firm from U.S. sanctions; EIB to back investments in Iran
•The European Union took formal steps on Friday to shield its firms from U.S. sanctions on Iran as part of efforts to save the international nuclear deal with Tehran.
•EU leaders meeting on Thursday in Bulgaria gave the European Commission, the bloc’'s executive arm, the all-clear amid a deepening rift with Washington.
•The commission said on Friday it “launched the formal process to activate the blocking statute by updating the list of U.S. sanctions on Iran falling within its scope.” The commission said it hopes the statute will be in force before August 6 when the first batch of reimposed U.S. sanctions take effect.
•President Donald Trump last week pulled Washington out of the 2015 international deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programme in return for easing sanctions.
•The statute, which the 28 EU member states and the European Parliament must endorse, is aimed at reassuring European firms that invested in Iran after the deal.
Blocking statute
•“The blocking statute forbids EU companies from complying with the extraterritorial effects of US sanctions,” the commission said.
•It also “allows companies to recover damages arising from such sanctions from the person causing them, and nullifies the effect in the EU of any foreign court judgements based on them”, the executive added.
•Brussels took steps on three other fronts to shore up the Iran deal, signed not just by the EU but EU members Britain, France and Germany, along with China and Russia.
•The “blocking statute” is a 1996 regulation originally created to circumvent Washington’s trade embargo on Cuba, which prohibits EU companies and courts from complying with specific foreign sanction laws.
•However, the Cuba row was settled politically, so the blocking regulation’s effectiveness was never put to the test, and its value may lie more in becoming a bargaining chip with Washington.
•Since the U.S. withdrawal, the remaining parties have all pledged to stick to the deal if Tehran respects its terms. Beijing and Moscow have also stepped up efforts to save the deal.
•Tehran has warned it is ready to resume no-holds-barred “industrial-scale” uranium enrichment unless Europe can provide solid guarantees to preserve Iran's economic benefits under the deal.
Right track
•During talks in Brussels on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said efforts to save the deal were on the “right track”.
•On other fronts, the Commission moved on Friday to remove hurdles for the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance activities outside the EU, such as in Iran.
•It said the move will “allow the EIB to support EU investment in Iran,” particularly involving small and medium-sized companies.
•The commission on Friday called for doing more to help Iran’s energy sector and small and medium-sized companies, as part of “confidence-building measures.”
📰 Governor’s discretion has its limits
SC ruled in 2016 that a Governor’s choice of action must not be arbitrary, fanciful
•The core constitutional issue behind the Congress’s challenge is whether the appointment of K.G. Bopaiah by Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala is an “arbitrary” use of gubernatorial discretion.
•Article 180 (1) of the Constitution gives the Governor the power to appoint a pro tem Speaker.
•The Article says that if the chair of the Speaker falls vacant and there is no Deputy Speaker to fill the position, the duties of the office shall be performed “by such member of the Assembly as the Governor may appoint for the purpose”.
•The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the appointment of a pro tem Speaker to conduct a floor test to decide the majority in the Karnataka Assembly on May 19. It is the Governor’s duty to make the appointment. Article 180 (1) is silent about the extent to which the Governor can use his or her discretion.
•The BJP defends the Governor’s appointment of Mr. Bopaiah by quoting Article 163 (2) of the Constitution. The latter part of this Article mandates that “the validity of anything done by the Governor shall not be called in question on the ground that he ought or ought not to have acted in his discretion”.
•But the five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court led by then Chief Justice J.S. Khehar in the Nabam Rebia judgment of 2016 ruled that Article 163 does not give Governors a “general discretionary power” as is often misunderstood.
•“The area for the exercise of his [Governor’s] discretion is limited. Even this limited area, his choice of action should not be arbitrary or fanciful. It must be a choice dictated by reason, actuated by good faith and tempered by caution,” the Constitution Bench, of which the current Chief Justice Dipak Misra, was a part of, held.
•The Rebia case dealt with the problem of the Arunachal Pradesh Governor advancing the date for the sixth Assembly session.
Judicial review
•An issue which may arise is whether the discretion of the Governor can be judicially reviewed by the Supreme Court. But a Constitution Bench judgment in 2006 in the Rameshwar Prasad case has held that the “immunity granted to the Governor under Article 361 (1) does not affect the power of the Court to judicially scrutinise the attack made to the proclamation under Article 361(1) of the Constitution of India on the ground of mala fides or it being ultra vires”.
📰 Online resource for academicians soon
They can connect with experts, access books and journals in their fields of study
•University and college teachers across the country will soon be able to connect with experts in their fields of study and also pose queries on academic questions that they wish resolved through suggestions offered by these experts or other teachers of their discipline.
•A National Resource Centre, envisaged as a one-stop point for Indian academicians to enhance their research and teaching skills, will make such cooperation across universities possible with the launch of a portal within months from now.
•The National Institute of Educational Research and Planning (NIEPA) is in the process of rolling out the centre, an initiative that is part of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Training (PMMMNMTT), an ambitious scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.
Detailed database
•The centre will enable college and university teachers to access a detailed database of academic resources, including lists of books, top journals and subject experts in their area of interest. It will also suggest a mechanism to higher education institutions to assess students’ satisfaction with teaching and research in the institutions, so that the faculty are able to figure out what students think about their college/university and make improvements.
•NIEPA will hold a series of intensive workshops with experts in various disciplines in the next two months to put together an effective resource centre, said an official who did not want to be named.
•The PMMMNMTT calls for a National Resource Centre to be “set up with the vision of developing teachers who are able to enhance their potential and push the frontiers of knowledge through research, networking and sharing of existing resources in the competitive knowledge world”. The portal will be launched with detailed information on resources in some key subjects: History, Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology. Education and Management will also feature among the chosen disciplines.
📰 Balancing conflicting claims
The 15th Finance Commission has to take a call on the degree of equalisation that’s feasible
•In the context of the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the 15th Finance Commission (FFC), certain key aspects relate to (a) the mandate for using the 2011 population; (b) ‘whether revenue deficit grants’ be given at all; (c) the impact of the goods and services tax (GST) on the finances of the Centre and States; (d) the reference to ‘conditionalities’ on State borrowing; and (e) providing performance incentives in respect of some contentious indicators.
Shift from 1971 to 2011
•The southern States apprehend that they stand to lose under the so-called ‘population criterion’ if the 2011 population replaces the use of 1971 figures. State populations change not only because of their differential population growth but also due to migration. Using 1971 population data implies consciously using information that would be 50 years out of date by 2020-21, the first year of the FFC’s recommendation period. Population data used by the successive Finance Commissions in different criteria have served as a ‘scaling’ factor — that is, the larger the size of the population, the larger is the magnitude of fiscal transfer. In principle, fiscal transfer is determined in per capita terms and then scaled up to cater to the entire population living in the State. In deriving the per capita GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product), it is always calculated using current rather than dated population, as is done in the ‘income distance’ criterion. Scaling per capita transfer up only to an imaginary size of population such as the 1971 population for years beyond 1971 was always an artificial exercise. No other major federation uses such a practice. Major federations like Canada and Australia with well-established fiscal transfer principles use all relevant information that is up-to-date as much as possible.
•Losses or gains depend on the relative weights attached to different criteria, and changes in other information including per capital GSDP. There is a case under the present circumstances to have a relook and lower the weights attached particularly to the population and income-distance criteria. It is interesting to note that the weight attached to the population criterion has varied from 25% to 10% and that attached to the distance formula from 62.5% to 50% from the 10th to the 14th FCs.
•The reference in the ToR regarding revenue deficit grants does not necessarily imply that grants given under Article 275(1) should be discontinued. This article enjoins the Finance Commission first to determine the ‘principles’ which should govern the grants-in-aid of the revenues of the State and then determine the ‘sums’ that are to be paid. Revenue deficit grants often did follow implicitly the gap-filling approach, even though moderated by application of some partial norms. This approach has been heavily criticised in the literature on fiscal transfers in India for the adverse incentives that it generates. In fact, there is a strong case to discontinue revenue deficit grants based on gap filling but continue to recommend grants under Article 275(1) based on more acceptable principles.
Horizontal allocations
•Most major federations follow an equalisation approach to determine fiscal transfers that is consistent with the objectives of equity and efficiency. In fact, just preceding the reference to ‘revenue deficit grants’ under Clause 5 of the ToR, the FFC has been asked to be ‘guided by the principles of equity, efficiency, and transparency’. Under the principle of equalisation, transfers aim to ‘equalise’ fiscal capacities, enabling States to provide services at comparable standards provided they make comparable tax effort after taking into account cost and use disabilities. Equalisation grants are policy neutral and need not be sector-specific although the 11th and 12th Commissions used the equalisation principle partially to provide sector-specific grants. It is the application of the ‘equity’ principle that has resulted in relatively well-off States losing their share. It has no other connotation.
•In this context, one notable group consists of the mineral-rich States: Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam. These coal-rich States continue to carry a significant pollution load on behalf of the nation. They lost the opportunity of early industrialisation due the Centre’s policy of freight equalisation whereby the transport of coal was subsidised, thereby neutralising their main location benefit. With freight equalisation, many thermal power plants were set up in the southern States, powering their industrial growth. Although freight equalisation is now discontinued, environmental constraints beset setting up of industries in these mineral-rich States.
•The Finance Commission has the difficult task of resolving competing claims of different groups of States. This is best done by adhering to the most appropriate principles, including that of policy neutrality. The Finance Commission, which is ideally expected to provide a symmetric treatment between the Centre and States, is not the appropriate platform for promoting Central policy priorities. References in the ToR to the Centre’s flagship schemes, ‘populist policies’ of States and conditionalities on State borrowing imply an asymmetric view of the Centre vis-à-vis States. In fact, as far as State borrowings are concerned, after the recommendation of the 12th Finance Commission, major States do not borrow from the Centre. In any case, too long ToR should be avoided. Finance Commissions know better.
Devolution of taxes
•The 14th Finance Commission raised the proportion of sharable taxes to states to 42%. It was at pains to point out that the increase was largely meant to ‘enhance the share of unconditional transfers to the States’. In deciding on the share, it is necessary to take into account not only the constitutional responsibilities but also the perceptions of the people who look to the Central government for remedies to all issues. It started with economic planning. Every economic issue is now laid at the door of the Centre itself. Perhaps, we are reaching a situation where the Constitution itself can be amended to fix the share that must go to States and leave Finance Commissions only with the task of horizontal allocation. Even as the share going to States gets increased, there is need to include ‘contribution to Central taxes’, suitably measured, also as a criterion in horizontal distribution as some of the taxes are vested in the Centre only on grounds of efficiency and economy. It is here that the relatively advanced States have a valid grouse.
•Fiscal transfers in India have long been characterised by two major inefficiencies: the use of dated population figures and a ‘gap-filling’ approach. Implementing a comprehensive equalisation approach would overcome these deficiencies. This requires estimating States’ fiscal capacities reflecting their tax bases. In the case of the GST, consumption rather than income would be a better tax base. This should be supplemented by the tax-bases of the non-GST taxes. To assess the expenditure needs, cost and use disabilities should be incorporated. This should capture higher health expenditures for some States like Kerala where the population is ageing. For the mineral-rich States, the cost of their environmental load should be incorporated. For the hilly States, remoteness would be a cost-related disability.
•Full equalisation in India implies considerable redistribution due to the large populations of the low fiscal capacity States (see Rangarajan and Srivastava, ‘Reforming India’s Fiscal Transfer System’, Economic and Political Weekly, June 7, 2008, for a detailed discussion). The FFC has to take a call on the degree of equalisation that may be considered feasible. A balancing of criteria is needed. Most of India’s future potential growth will be driven by the States which can effectively utilise their demographic dividends, which will be facilitated by an adequate provision of education and health services in these States. This would facilitate an accelerated growth of their fiscal capacities requiring relatively less redistribution for achieving greater equalisation over time.
📰 Nine years after: On ninth anniversary of the end of civil war in Sri Lanka
The anniversary of the civil war’s end reveals the persisting ethnic division in Sri Lanka
•Nine years is perhaps too short a time for deep wounds to heal, but it is enough time to begin to introspect. However, going by the polarised views around the anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, there are few signs of that. For the Tamils who gathered in Mullaitivu district in the Northern Province on Friday, it was a day to remember loved ones killed in those savage final days of the war that ended on May 18, 2009 — according to UN estimates, nearly 40,000 died. The southern Sinhalese political leadership, on the other hand, makes it a point to celebrate “war heroes” around the same time, hailing their efforts to bring peace. Even this year, national leaders, including President Maithripala Sirisena, saluted the soldiers for their sacrifice, while offering nothing but silence to the civilians who were caught in the conflict. The two disparate narratives of trauma and triumph can never meet, and in such a context, the chances for fruitfully negotiating this hard-won peace will remain slim. Time will only make it harder for the two communities to resolve the ethnic division that has outlived the war.
•The government led by President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe came to power in 2015 promising, among other things, a political solution to Sri Lanka’s national question. It initiated the drafting of a constitution that would potentially devolve more powers to all provinces, including the Tamil-majority north and east. Preoccupied with the persistent tension within the ruling coalition, the leadership has done little to take the exercise forward at a convincing pace, let alone complete it. Even the welcome initiatives of the government in the affected areas, such as the release of military occupied land or efforts to probe cases of enforced disappearance, will have only limited appeal or impact in the absence of a durable political solution. The international community has spared the government of pressure on the accountability front, hoping that it would proactively address other concerns that linger for the Tamil citizens. If initiatives on the political front have been so stalled, efforts to revive the economy do not offer much promise either. Almost every family in the north and east is neck-deep in debt and young people are desperate for employment. To say that time is running out is to state the obvious. Addressing the present challenges is one way of helping a wounded people cope with their troubled past. The memories that haunt them may never die. But some healing may be possible if they have a better future to look forward to. This government, which came to power with the overwhelming support of Tamils, must not let them down. It must not add to the list of missed opportunities.
📰 Death by slow poisoning
An estimated 10 million people in nine districts of West Bengal drink arsenic-laden groundwater. Priyanka Pulla finds that despite alarms having been sounded over decades, the State government has moved at a glacial pace to tackle the crisis, while people struggle to cope with the symptoms
•On a Thursday morning at the government primary school in Madhusudankati, a village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, a gaggle of five-year-olds chatter animatedly in a classroom. A teacher walks in. They stand up and chant “Good morning, teacher” in a high-pitched sing-song. There is momentary quiet, and the rustle of textbooks being opened, but the giggling and chattering return soon. It’s a school scene that is as ordinary as it gets, but behind its normalcy lies a disturbing fact: the bodies of these children contain alarming levels of arsenic — a poisonous metalloid that sickens and kills with chronic exposure. Unlike the adults in Madhusudankati though, the children don’t show any symptoms yet.
•Madhusudankati is a lush green agricultural village about 14 km from the border with Bangladesh and deep inside India’s arsenic territory. About 15 years ago, scientists discovered that the shallow groundwater here had high levels of the mineral: up to 1,000 micrograms (mcg) per litre in places. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) prescribed safe level is 10 mcg per litre. When such water is consumed for years, either directly or through the food chain, the mineral damages organs like the skin, kidneys and lungs.
•The most visible symptom in early years is a classic blotchy pattern on the skin, a condition called raindrop pigmentation. If people showing such pigmentation don’t switch to safer water, they develop hyperkeratosis — dark crusts on their palms and soles, which can get infected and make it painful to work. Eventually, the skin can turn cancerous. Simultaneously, arsenic can destroy the kidneys and liver tissue, cause conjunctivitis and affect the lungs, just as heavy smoking does. There are few organs that arsenic spares.
Mass poisoning
•Today, an estimated 10 million people in nine districts in West Bengal drink arsenic-laden groundwater. It is the worst worldwide case of mass poisoning alongside Bangladesh, which has 40 million people at risk. When West Bengal’s problem first attracted international attention in 1995, a researcher from the University of Colorado compared its scale with the Chernobyl disaster. Today, we know it is worse. But despite the grave warnings from international bodies like the WHO, the West Bengal government has moved excruciatingly slowly to tackle the crisis. A critical shortcoming in its efforts was the delay in realising that mitigation is a sociological challenge, not just a technological one. This is why, even though multiple technologies to filter arsenic from groundwater are there, awareness of arsenic’s ill-effects remains low. So, people continue drinking toxic water, even when alternatives exist.
•Madhusudankati is an example of this. In 2013, a farmer’s cooperative society, the Madhusudankati Samabay Krishi Unnayan Samity (MSKUS), installed a water treatment plant in the village with help from the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation. Today, the plant supplies treated water from a local pond to 500 families and the primary school. However, studies show that despite the availability of MSKUS water, several people continue drinking contaminated groundwater.
•In August 2017, a team led by Tarit Roychowdhury, an Associate Professor at the School of Environmental Studies (SOES) in Kolkata’s Jadavpur University, collected urine, nail and hair samples from the children in Madhusudankati’s primary school. By then, the school had stopped using water from its contaminated tube well for drinking and cooking midday meals, switching to MSKUS water instead. Several village families had done the same.
•Yet, Roychowdhury’s team found between 20 and 200 mcg per litre of arsenic in the children’s urine, a sign that they were still consuming the poison. “This means the children are still drinking polluted water at their homes or somewhere else,” says Roychowdhury.
•Outwardly, the children seem symptom-free. Arsenic is a silent killer; it takes years for keratosis to show in adults and even longer in children. But there is extensive evidence that children are not immune to internal damage — their lungs, kidneys and other organs are slowly being ravaged. Studies also show that arsenic-exposed children have lower IQ compared to control groups. “If they continue drinking this water, they will definitely develop keratosis,” says Roychowdhury.
Years of neglect
•In 1983, a doctor called Kshitij Chandra Saha from the West Bengal Health Services began examining a cluster of patients with skin lesions in the formerly undivided 24 Parganas district. Saha diagnosed them with arsenicosis, the first record of the illness in the Indian subcontinent. In the following years, Saha and epidemiologist Dipankar Chakraborti, the founder of SOES, surveyed more villages. It dawned upon them that they were uncovering a massive epidemic. By 1988, six arsenic-affected districts had been identified along the eastern border of West Bengal. The source of the toxin seemed to be the thousands of shallow tube wells that dotted the region. But there was confusion about why the arsenic was there — some suggested that the metal strainers in the tube wells were leaching the mineral, some thought pesticides were the culprit, and some others thought arsenic-treated electric poles were at fault.
•The researchers sounded the alarm. They warned the government that people would grow sicker unless they switched immediately to safe water. But the government’s first reaction was denial, Chakraborti noted in a paper publishedin the journal Talanta in 2002. It was a theme that continued for years. The government did appoint committees in 1983, ’88, ’92 and ’93 to examine the problem, but the findings didn’t trigger substantial action. Presciently, a member of the ’93 committee even resigned, saying schoolchildren were continuing to drink contaminated water because the government wasn’t digging alternative tube wells. Over a decade later, researchers are still reporting the consumption of contaminated water by schoolchildren in districts like Malda.
•After denial in the initial years came some questionable decisions by the government. Even though the State had tested 1,32,267 tube wells for contamination by 2007, the polluted wells weren’t marked. Instead, the government dug alternative tube wells in some spots and installed filters in some others. Several experts, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), advocated that unsafe tube wells immediately be painted red, so that people would avoid them. But there was strong resistance to the idea from the government, says Kumar Jyoti Nath, the chairman of West Bengal’s Arsenic Task Force, an advisory body. “We told them again and again that the scientific truth must be shared with the public. But they said it would create panic,” Nath says.
•UNICEF consultants, SOES, and Nath were also of the opinion that public outreach ought to be the foundation of the government’s mitigation strategy. This would mean not just painting wells, but also holding door-to-door campaigns, conducting street plays and distributing flyers about the danger of using contaminated tube wells. Unless this happened, patients would not go to government-run arsenic clinics or switch to safe tube wells. But this did not happen on a large enough scale.
•Such outreach campaigns would have needed dedicated communication experts, which the government did not have. The West Bengal Public HealthEngineering Department (PHED), which is at the helm of the State’s mitigation efforts today, is manned by engineers. “There was no one to advise them on the communication strategy; on how to ensure people’s participation,” says Nath. “So, the department has always been hardware-oriented. The software has been neglected.”
Impact on hardware
•This neglect impacted the hardware too. Over the years, countless arsenic-filtration technologies were developed by institutions like the SOES and the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute. Some, like SOES’s filter, were for household use. This device had two components. This first was a tablet made of an iron salt, an oxidising agent and activated charcoal which reacted with arsenic in water to turn it into a filtrable floc. The second component, a fly-ash filter, would filter out the floc, which would then have to be disposed of safely. But even though the SOES filter and others like it worked flawlessly in the lab, they failed frequently in the field. Several people couldn’t figure out how to use them. During an evaluation, Roychowdhury’s team found that villagers would use multiple tablets in the filter instead of one, or expose the tablets to sunlight, or let the filter run dry. Such problems plagued community filters too, which were designed for several households. Toxic arsenic sludge was sometimes disposed of unsafely, sent back into the environment, instead of being treated as per protocol. Meanwhile, materials used in the filter, such as bleaching powder, weren’t stored properly, causing them to lose efficacy. “At some point, you realise that the investments in hardware are not yielding returns, because you have not invested in awareness,” says Nath.
•In 2016, a study in North 24 Parganas district, jointly conducted by UNICEF and PHED, found that merely marking tube wells as safe or unsafe and conducting awareness campaigns brought about large behavioural changes. “Even if we don’t provide alternative safe water sources, just marking tube wells can go a long way in mitigation,” says Shyamnarayan Dave, who was a UNICEF consultant to the West Bengal government till 2015. But the State government realised this truth rather late. Almost after a decade of advocacy for awareness campaigns, it officially began painting tube wells two years ago.
A geological curse
•Even as the government struggles to implement technological solutions to arsenic contamination, there is good news on another front. Scientists today broadly agree on the source of arsenic in the Ganga delta, a consensus that didn’t exist earlier. John McArthur, a geochemist at the University College of London, explains the science in simple terms. The process is thought to have begun between 18,000 and 6,000 years ago, when small Himalayan rock particles, coated with iron oxide, entered the Ganga river delta. Along the way, these particles absorbed the tiny amounts of arsenic in the river water, like a sponge soaking liquid. These particles were then deposited in layers of sediment, over thousands of years, in what is now West Bengal and Bangladesh.
•Here, the rocks stayed in a more or less stable state until another actor entered the scene: decaying organic matter, or peat, says McArthur. The Ganga delta was also home to swampy wetlands some 5,000 years ago. The organic matter from these wetlands is now decaying slowly, alongside the arsenic. When the bacteria responsible for this decay come in contact with the iron oxide in the arsenic-bearing rocks, they use the oxygen from the iron oxide for their own metabolism, setting both arsenic and iron free. This is why the groundwater in West Bengal and Bangladesh are rich in both minerals.
•The free arsenic, buried under the soil, did not pose a human threat until three decades ago. Till then, most Bengali and Bangladeshi homes depended on lakes and rivers for their domestic needs. But some time in the ’70s, families switched en masse to tube wells, because the surface water was growing increasingly contaminated, spreading diseases like cholera. “In this region, you can get groundwater at depth of a few meters. So, everyone began digging tube wells in their own backyards,” says Roychowdhury. This unleashed the underground arsenic.
•There is uncertainty today on how the geological mechanism of arsenic release impacts policy. Researchers agree that shallow tube wells, less than 150 meters deep, are the worst affected, because they contain arsenic-rich sediments from the Holocene era, when the arsenic arrived in the delta. Conversely, deep aquifers, more than 150 meters underground, are unaffected because they tap into the older Pleistocene sediments. According to McArthur, such deep tube wells can potentially be used for a long time without fear of contamination, as they have been in Bangladesh. “The smart money is on the deep aquifer remaining viable for many decades, if not forever,” he says.
•But Roychowdhury argues that even deep aquifers can become tainted with the overuse of groundwater. Such overuse is disturbing the clay separating the deep and shallow aquifers, allowing the arsenic to enter previously pristine waters, he says. His research seems to bear this out. In a study in North 24 Parganas, deep tube wells which were uncontaminated initially saw arsenic levels rise in about five years. If this phenomenon is typical across West Bengal, the government’s initial strategy of digging deeper tube wells to replace shallow ones may not even be a good stopgap. “Until we stop using groundwater, and focus on watershed management, this problem will remain,” he says.
Piped dream
•The endgame for the West Bengal government is to replace all groundwater for domestic use with water from the river Hooghly, using pipelines. But there are technical and financial challenges in laying such long pipelines. A senior official from the PHED, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the total cost of providing river water to all villages was an estimated ₹100,000 crore, money the government currently doesn’t have.
•This is why the State’s short-term strategy is to provide Hooghly water to about half the arsenic-affected villages. The other half are to be served by community arsenic-treatment plants. The first part of this strategy has been easy to execute, because West Bengal has years of experience in sanitising surface water. Even though this water is heavily contaminated with bacteria, technologies to remove these bacteria have been tried and tested. “For bacteriological quality improvement, we have experience for over 150 years,” says Nath. “The first water treatment plant in Kolkatta was 175 years old.” The problem lies with arsenic-removal technologies, which are still emerging.
•About 170 such community arsenic treatment plants are to be installed across the State before the end of 2018. This deadline could be tough to meet, given that only 60 plants have been commissioned so far. Moreover, many of the commissioned plants are still operating at low efficiency because of maintenance issues.
A socially isolating illness
•Until West Bengal is able to get safe water for all the 10 million at risk, its villages will remain dotted with tragedy. In Madhusudankati, a few km from the primary school lives a farmer, Monotosh Biswas. About 25 years ago, he began showing symptoms of toxicity. Today, his torso, palms and feet are dotted with lesions. A few years back, he developed Bowen’s Carcinoma, a skin cancer, on his hip. He went to Kolkata to get the lesion removed, spending ₹12,000 on medicines. While Bowen’s Carcinoma is treatable, others in the village have died of more lethal cancers.
•Between shallow breaths, a sign of arsenic-induced bronchitis, Biswas says his illness has also affected his farm work. The impact of arsenicosis on one’s livelihood and the social stigma attached to it extracts a high cost from sufferers, says Kunal Kanti Majumdar, a doctor at Kolkata’s KPC Medical College, who has worked in arsenic-affected areas for about two decades now. “Wherever I went, I found depression, social isolation and suicidal thoughts. It is not just a health problem, but also a social problem,” he says.
•As researchers fret about tackling the crisis, the schoolchildren in Madhusudankati are untroubled. It will be lunchtime soon. Roychowdhury’s team collects food samples from the kitchen, which will be tested. Even though the school water is now safe, the rice and vegetables being used could have been grown in soil containing arsenic. Understanding the impact of this on the children is the team’s next goal. “So far, we have only tested water and biological samples. Now, we have to test the food,” says Roychowdhury. “Maybe it will have arsenic. Maybe it won’t. Let us see.”
📰 ‘India’s freshwater stocks in danger’
NASA report based on observations from multiple satellites tracks global hydrologic changes
•India is among the hotspots where overuse of water resources has caused a sharp decline in the availability of freshwater, according to a first-of-its-kind study using an array of NASA satellite observations of the earth.
•Scientists led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the U.S. used data on human activities to map locations where the availability of freshwater is rapidly changing.
•The study, published in the journal Nature, found that wetter parts of the earth’s were getting wetter and dry areas getting drier due to a variety of factors, including human water use, climate change and natural cycles.
•Areas in northern and eastern India, West Asia, California and Australia are among the hotspots where overuse of water resources has caused a serious decline in the availability of freshwater, the study said.
•In northern India, groundwater extraction for irrigation of wheat and rice crops has led to depletion, despite rainfall being normal throughout the period studied, the report said.
•The fact that extractions already exceed recharge during normal precipitation does not bode well for the availability of groundwater during future droughts, the researchers said.
•The team used 14 years of observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft mission, a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, to track global trends in freshwater in 34 regions around the world.
Unique study
•“This is the first time that we have used observations from multiple satellites in a thorough assessment of how freshwater availability is changing everywhere on Earth,” said Matt Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. While some regions’ water supplies were found to be relatively stable, others experienced increases or decreases. “What we are witnessing is major hydrologic change,” said Jay Famiglietti of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
•“We see a distinctive pattern of the wet land areas of the world getting wetter — those are the high latitudes and the tropics — and the dry areas in between getting drier. Embedded within the dry areas we see multiple hotspots resulting from groundwater depletion,” said Mr. Famiglietti.
•He noted that while water loss in some regions, like the melting ice sheets and alpine glaciers, is clearly driven by warming climate, it will require more time and data to determine the driving forces behind other patterns of freshwater change.
