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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Ground water is the major source of drinking water in both rural and urban areas which may be contaminated by various means, Arsenic is one of them. Forty five hand-pump and river samples (containing 250ml each) from different blocks of Bhojpur district, Bihar were collected in sterile containers and analyzed. The values were found as pH (6.5-8.5), EC (277-1415μS/cm), TDS (237-1034 mg/L), As (0-785 ppb), Al (35.1-117 ppb),Cd (0-83 ppb), Cr (0-5 ppb),Cu (0-10 ppb), Ni (0-11 ppb), Pb (0-24 ppb), Mn (2.1-1303 ppb), Zn (110-2190 ppb) and Fe (0.06-14.39 mg/L). The results compared with the drinking water standard prescribed by Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) and it was observed that all the water quality parameters were within permissible limit of drinking water except As and Fe for most of the samples. Almost 40% of samples were within the acceptable limit of As (10 ppb) prescribed by BIS, 2012. Approximately ∼60% of water samples were enriched with As concentrations >10 µg/L, which ranged from below detectable limit (BDL) to 785 µg/L (average 162 µg/L). In case of Fe as 68.88% which exceeded the acceptable limit of 0.30 ppm as prescribed by BIS, 2012. High concentration of iron and arsenic may be attributed to the dissolution of pyrite bearing minerals from the geological strata.