West Bengal

The map shows that Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat are high salinity zones, and Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal are moderate salinity zones.

Click here to view the map - IRFC

Courtesy: CGWB

West Bengal at a glance

The availability of water, water requirement versus supply, water requirements for some major crops, groundwater exploitation, growth of population, and declining per capita water in the state of West Bengal are presented.

The groundwater related issues and problems the distrcit include:

The School of Environmental Studies of Jadavpur University has studied the arsenic contamination for the last 19 years. Their website gives some of the details of their work -

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In this presentation Probhash Kumar Biswas and Tirthankar Sarkar of Jadavpur University, Kolkata have designed a rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling system to meet some of the water needs of the hostel block in Jadavpur University.

Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in the Ganga-Padma-Meghna-Brahmaputra Plain of India and Bangladesh.This report from the Jadhavpur University highlights the intensity and magnitude of the arsenic contamination in the Ganga-Meghna-Bramhaputra plain which includes states Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Assam covering an area of 569,749 sq km.

The act aims to manage, control and regulate indiscriminate extraction of groundwater in West Bengal and to provide against its widespread contamination with arsenic, fluoride,  chloride, iron, other heavy metals or metalloids, organic and inorganic pesticides, fungicides, and rodenticides. It provides for the setting up of a State Level Authority which shall be under the administrative control of the Water Investigation and Development Department, Government of West Bengal and shall be the apex body of all the District Level Authorities and the Corporation Level Authority.

The PAHELI report (Peoples' Audit of Health Education and Livelihoods) is a rapid assessment of the prevailing status of human development in a district and covers four major sectors: life and livelihoods, water and sanitation, mother and child health, and education and literacy. The design and execution of PAHELI was done by Pratham and PAHELI district partners.

Tropical Storm Aila struck southern Bangladesh and eastern India on May 27, 2009. The New York Times reported that floods and mudslides killed at least 191 people and left hundreds of thousands more homeless. As of May 27, the death toll was expected to rise. Images from The Nasa Earth Observatory.