Bangalore First City in World to have Lead Map
Monica Jha/Newindpress
Bangalore, Mar 24: Bangalore will soon be the first city in the world to have a lead map. The map will indicate the presence of lead in samples of water, soil, plants, milk, paints, ceramic and plastic articles, from different parts of the city.
''The lead map will work as guidelines for people and policy makers and will also increase awareness about our exposure to lead in different forms,'' said Head of National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India, (NRCLPI), Dr Thuppil Venkatesh, on World Water Day on Saturday.
''Empowering society with knowledge and creating awareness about the ill-effects of lead is the best way to tackle the increasing lead pollution and thus the lead mapping,'' said secretary of Quality Council of India, Giridhar J Gyani.
The preparation of the lead map is a joint venture of National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India (NRCLPI), Quality Council of India (QCI) and Eureka Forbes with assistance from Harvard University, Boston Medical School, and various city colleges.
A similar lead map will also be made for Chennai. The reason for selecting Chennai and Bangalore for mapping is the distinct topography of the two mega cities, one at the sea-level and the other at an altitude of 3000 metres from sea-level, explained Venkatesh.
NRCLPI and Eureka Forbes have funded projects for 10 colleges in Bangalore for data collection and will fund five more. The data will be analysed at accredited laboratories.
The funds for different colleges range from Rs 5000 to Rs 60,000, depending on the quality and volume of the project. The college will have to invest the same amount of money as the fund granted.First data will be published in December and the lead maps of both the cities will be ready by 2012, Venkatesh said.
Water sans lead On the occasion of World Water Day, Eureka Forbes, a water-purifier manufacturing company in India, announced the introduction of Aquaguard Total Gold Nova, the first water-purifier in the world that removes lead and pesticides from water.
The purifier works on silver nano technology for activated carbon block, in addition to removing sediments and ultra-violet treatment.
The carbon block technology is developed by a Bangalore-based company Filtrex, using charred and activated coconut shell.
The purifier can reduce the lead content in water to less than 50 parts per billion (ppb) and is certified by NRCLPI and QCI, said Eureka Forbes MD, SL Goklaney. The purifier will be priced at Rs 9,500.
Permissible levels of lead in water (in ppb/ microgram per litre), according to different standards:
World Health Organisation 15 United States of America 10 Bureau of Indian Standards 50 * NRCLPI found as high as 200 ppb lead in some water samples from different parts of Bangalore.