The approximately Rs nine crore project, being undertaken by the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH) with a large chunk of aid from the Indo-Canadian Environment Fund (ICEF), will provide a low cost, low maintenance and sustainable solution to wipe off the decades-long arsenic contamination scourge.

``The five year project will establish community groups to take action on the deadly arcenicosis problem through ground and surface water treatment ," AIIH&PH director K J Nath told PTI.

Rain water in the affected areas will also be harvested to improve drinking water quality and provide alternate water sources, he said.

A simultaneous intervention programme will be taken up to prevent arcenicosis through improved community awareness, diagnosis and treatment.

The project is novel in that it willempower rural communities to solve the growing problem of arsenic pollution, which affects a population of 34 million spread over an area of 37,000 sq km in the state.

Nath said three groups -- a water quality monitoring team, a community projects team and a technical support team -- will identify contaminated water sources in the eight affected districts using field kits and lab analysis.

The water quality testing will be done at IIT, Kharagpur laboratories under another ICEF project.

``At the end of the first phase, 400 hand pumps attached with arsenic removal plants, developed at the institute, and 1000 domestic filter units will be installed," Nath said.

Besides, 200 ponds will be upgraded, 200 rainwater harvesting structures constructed and horizontal roughing filters (HHFs) and slow sand filters (SSFs) installed to treat surface water.

``Since surface water is devoid of arsenic, rain water harvesting will serve as viable solution to the problem," he said.

Confirming that the project involvedno occupational risks, he said the `arsenic sludge' generated in the treatment process can be used as building material.

``Further research is needed to find out other viable uses of this end product,'' Nath said adding apart from this, there was no risk to local environment since water and soil would not be contaminated.

Nath said pre-implementaion surveys showed average arsenic concentration in most of the project areas to be ranging between 0.05 parts per million (PPM) to four PPM, much above World Health Organisation's maximum permissible limits of 0.01 PPM.

The hand pump attached low cost arsenic removal technology developed by the institute reduces arsenic value from 0.2 to 0.005 ppm after treating water with locally available alum and bleaching powder solution.