INDIA: Nuapada, Khariar grapple with fluoride content in potable water

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Nuapada, Khariar grapple with fluoride content in potable water

The Times of India - May 3, 2024

Bhubaneswar: Safe and healthy still remains a big issue in twin assembly constituencies — Nuapada and Khariar — with 90 villages in Nuapada district alone struggling with high fluoride content.

Fluoride causes fluorosis causing multiple ailments with mostly culminating in kidney diseases leaving people looking aged.

The fluoride problem has been haunting the district since 1996 and in these years, efforts by the govt helped villagers get drinking water drawn from a nearby river, which is fluoride free.

Yet, there are tubewells that draw fluoride-mixed water resulting in tooth decay, early old age, and skin problems.

“The impact caused by the intake of water is such that the young ones also look wizened in the villages. In Kashipala village under Khariar block, five people died of renal failure. Piped drinking water proved to be the lone solution after which fluorosis cases dropped but it was not enough. Around 500 tubewells have been declared defunct but people still consume them in acute summer,” said Abani Panigrahi, a social worker of the district.

Sources said the worst-affected villages, as per official records, are Boden and Komna blocks where water has more than 1.5% fluoride content. With all the tubewells pumping rich fluoride mixed with water, people have been told not to draw water from tubewells.

Villages like Palsipani and Dhumabhata in Komna block and Karlapat and Sukalpur in Boden block are found to have a rich content of fluoride in groundwater. Hitesh Bagarti, BJP’s Khariar assembly seat nominee, said more steps need to be taken to ensure safe drinking water in the interiors.

SOURCE:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 798557.cms