sA.Fe : For love of cinesrA and Iron

The Scholars’ Avenue had a chance to chat with Professor Chandranath Chatterjee of the Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering to relieve concerns that some students may have had regarding the water quality on our campus. The concerns had risen from West Bengal’s reputation for a high arsenic content in its water. Just to keep you informed, prolonged exposure to arsenic may lead to problems related to the digestive system and in the worst case, can cause cancer.

Now before you make the futile attempt of going to BC Roy to have yourself tested, let this brief article ease your freshly acquired qualms (thank you very much, we don’t get a lot of validation here).

To begin with, courtesy of Professor Chatterjee, the institute’s water supply is indeed free from any significant level of arsenic. The water in West Bengal that is contaminated with arsenic, however, is limited to the regions close to Bangladesh (you’d guessed right, sorry). This is of no concern to the population here as our water is sourced from the river Kansabathi and a number of underground reservoirs from Balrampur. These two sources comprise about 90% of our water supply, the rest originating in our campus. Albeit the nonexistent arsenic, a cause for concern, however, is a significant amount of Iron in these sources. This is eliminated by the various Iron treatment plants that have been installed in the campus and the water is treated here before they finally reach the halls for end use. Furthermore, regular tests are run on water samples collected from various points in the process, whose results are available on HMC’s website.

We did say that it was a short article. If you were expecting more, here’s a doge to remind you to have your share of water.