4 firms adopt BARC’s technology to detect water contamination

It affects people in 200 districts across 15 states, including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana, Odisha, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. While the safe level of fluoride in drinking water is one mg per litre, the fluoride content in water in these states is in excess of this limit and in many instances, it is 50 mg per litre.

“The tool developed at BARC is a simple, user-friendly and highly cost-effective kit for estimation of fluoride in groundwater. The procedure is simple and the safe and toxic levels can be judged visually by change in colour when the reagent is added to groundwater.

The reagent can be used by a layman as well, since there is no need of sophisticated laboratory. The color develops almost instantaneously and the distinction can be made with the naked eye. Water sample can be immediately categorised as being safe, marginal or unsafe for drinking from fluoride point of view,” said a BARC official.

He added that the unsafe water sample can be further tested easily, to quantify the fluoride level roughly in order to know how unsafe it is.

“This comes in handy to either compare the levels of toxicity between two sources or to spot the least toxic source of groundwater in an area where the entire groundwater is found fluoride-contaminated,” he said.

While the technologies have earlier been transferred to two companies in Maharashtra, one each in Nagpur and Amravati and another in Hyderabad, the fourth transfer on May 13 was made to a Bhopal-based company.

As per estimated figures, BARC has so far transferred various technologies to about 1,000 companies. “The process is stringent and only deserving industries are transferred a particular technology,” added the official.
mihika.basu@expressindia.com