DRDO DOMESTIC FILTER : A SOLUTION FOR ARSENIC POISONING

This paper presents the results of the performance of an innovative domestic arsenic removal water filter developed by Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Ministry of Defence, Government of India in the four villages namely Arbandi and Lalmath, (Distt. Nadia, West Bengal,) , Tiwaritolla , Ramgarh (Distt. Ballia, Uttar Pradesh) and Ranuchak , Nathnagar( Distt. Bhagalpur, Bihar). The selected villages have access only to ground water for the drinking and other related purposes and the arsenic concentration in this water is found to be in the range of 30 to 1000ppb except in a few cases where it has even gone up to 3000ppb as against the permissible level of 10 ppb under WHO/ EPA guidelines. The average number of the families in each village ranges between 300 to 350. The monthly average quantity of water filtered from each filter is about 6000 liters ( amounting to the consumption of ~200liters per day/ filter). The lady of the house is trained to use the filter and manages very well the simple operation and maintenance of the system. However, in 3-4% cases, water was found contaminated due to lack of proper cleaning of the filters.

The technology has been successfully evaluated in the field in terms of it’s efficiency for the removal of arsenic, iron and bacteria from ground water. About 2000 such filters are already in use by villagers in arsenic affected areas of India for last six years .

Based on the present studies ,it can be concluded that the DRDO technology has been proved to be an immediate and also a sustainable solution for the menace caused by arsenic poisoning in the various states of India ( Bihar, Chattisgarh, North-East region, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal etc.) as well as in the other developing countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan etc. The technology has already been scaled up to a centralized continuous plant of flow rate of ~ 100LPH capacity to cater the need at community level.