Water that heals

It was once a land where ground water was so contaminated by arsenic that many who drank it turned dark with its poison. Today, the same villagers are making a living selling purified drinking water, a transformation brought about by the introduction of a cheap and effective surface water filtration technology introduced by Delhi-based NGO Sulabh International.
It has been a long journey indeed for the people of Madhusudan Kati, a village in what has come to be known as West Bengal's "arsenic belt". "Since I was a child, I have seen how people around me suffered because of drinking local groundwater," says Haldhar Sarkar, a retired engineer from Madhusudan Kati. Since the 1990s, ground water in parts of eastern India and Bangladesh have been found to be contaminated with naturally occurring arsenic, making it unfit for drinking. Drinking water laced with arsenic has catastrophic long-term consequences such as arsenicosis (arsenic poisoning) and cancer. "Over the years, I've seen villagers develop tumours, skin problems and worse," says Sarkar. While the West Bengal government set up a number of plants to purify groundwater in these areas, the projects were largely unsuccessful.
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