ASSAM DANGEROUS UNDERGROUND

For more than a decade, Assam has been in the limelight for its multiple insurgencies. Because of this almost exclusive focus on violence, a new danger confronting Assamese society may go unnoticed to the point where it assumes an uncontrollable magnitude. Hydrofluorides have begun to threaten a potential health disaster and today over one hundred thousand people of the state suffer from hydrofluorosis, a disorder caused by continuous consumption of ground water contaminated by excess fluorides. Hundreds of villages on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra in middle Assam are affected by the contamination. The problem is so serious that, besides the Assam valley, the rainforest belt of Karbi Anglong and regions neighbouring the state's Nagaon district have now been included in the "fluoride map" of India. Karbi Anglong, which has an area of 10,332 square kilometres, is by far the worst affected, with 10 per cent of its population of 700,000 suffering from dental or skeletal fluorosis. Of the Assamese population afflicted by flourosis, 70 per cent are from Karbi Anglong. The affected areas include Tekelangjun, Dokmaka, Lungnit, Taradubi, Tuplem, Garampani, Karbi Anglong, Ratiagaon, Haldiati, Parakhowa, and the Neelbagan area of Nagaon district.

The first fluorosis case in the Northeast was discovered in 1999 in the Tekelangjun area of Karbi Anglong, where fluoride levels were found to be as high as 5 to 23 mg/ litre. According to World Health Organisation guidelines, the permissible limit of fluoride in drinking water is only 1 mg/litre. This creeping tragedy came to light following a study conducted by the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) of Assam. Subsequent independent studies conducted by various organisations, including the Central Ground Water Board (New Delhi), The All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (Calcutta), The School of Environmental Studies (Jadavpur University, Calcutta) and the Public Analyst in Guwahati, have corroborated the findings of the PHED survey. Interestingly, as late as 1998, the country's geological and public health scientists had declared the Northeastern region safe from fluoride contamination.