Soume Pyne and Subhas Chandra Santra
An investigation was conducted to study the arsenic (As) accumulation in locally grown vegetables at selected blocks of Murshidabad and N-24 Pargana district, West Bengal, India and also to evaluate the possible health hazard on consumption among inhabitants. As concentration in ground water ranged from 0.25 -0.44 mg l-1 in Murshidabad and 0.15 -0.29 mg l-1 in N-24 Pargana. The cultivated soil of studied area are highly contaminated with As, using As rich ground water for irrigation, varied from 1.50– 6.8 mg kg-1. The highest As accumulation was found in Potato (0.28±0.05 mg kg-1) and (0.34±0.007 mg kg-1) in Domkal and Beldanga respectively, whereas lowest value was found in Hyacinth Bean (0.050±0.03 mg kg-1) and Bitter gourd (0.037±0.02 mg kg-1) of the same site. Alike the highest and lowest accumulation was found in Potato (0.30±0.01 mg kg-1) and Ridge gourd (0.04±0.01 mg kg-1) for Bira and Potato (0.30±0.01 mg kg-1) and Hyacinth Bean (0.03±0.002 mg kg-1) for Deganga. Estimated daily intake (EDI) of As from vegetables were calculated and it was ranged from 0.102-0.23 mg/(kg bw/d) for Murshidabad and 0.09 -0.33 mg/(kg bw/d) for N-24 Pargana for adults respectively. Similarly the Target hazardous quotient (THQ) value ranged from 0.102-1.1 of the two studied area. THQ of As through vegetable consumption was greater than 1 at Deganga, indicates higher possibility of carcinogenicity by consumption of the As contaminated food. Also in case of other selected sites the THQ value was lower than 1, indicates it was still safe for consumption.
