According to Om Prakash Sharma, head of non-governmental organization (NGO) Gram Chetna Kendra, the disability rate in these villages is 10 per 1,000 people, while the national average is five per 1,000, thus double the general average.
Sambhar (Rajasthan):
Two cousins aged 18 and six years respectively are facing problems of crooked legs and stunted growth. Both of them are not troubled by this problem alone as many children and elders in their joint family also suffer from joint pain. They know that the root cause of these problems is the water they are drinking but cannot do anything because there is no other option. This story is not only of Singh family but also of other families of Devpura and Mundwada villages of Sambhar block, about 80 km away from Sambhar, India’s largest brackish water lake located in Rajasthan. Most of them are illiterate and blame the lake water for contaminating the ground water due to which the drinking water is high in salinity and fluoride.
According to Om Prakash Sharma, head of Gram Chetna Kendra, a non-governmental organization (NGO) working in the area, the disability rate in these two villages, located about 50 km from Jaipur, is 10 per 1,000 people, while the national average is 1 per 1,000. is five, thus it is twice the normal average.
He said that disability is directly related to the high amount of fluoride in the area and this has also been confirmed in the studies.
Dr. Aman Dua, director of the Department of Joint Transplantation and Orthopedics at Fortis Escort Hospital, Delhi, says that if the amount of fluoride in water is more than one milligram per liter, then the bones begin to weaken.
“This leads to bone loss, joint deformities, and its symptoms, especially in the spine, can lead to increased pressure on the nerves and long-term use of fluoridated water can lead to leg cramps,” he said. become weak.
According to the report of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), the level of fluoride in the ground water of these villages of Jaipur district is a matter of concern as the amount of fluoride found in some places of Sambhar block is up to 16.4 milligrams per liter against the permissible rate of one milligram. per litre. At the same time, this rate in the water of Sambhar lake is 2.41 milligrams per liter.
18-year-old Lalita of the Singh family, living in Devapura village, told that when she was five years old, only then her mother found that she was not able to stand straight, only after that the disability started appearing in the legs and for the coming years The deformity in the legs became apparent. Lalita told that she started stuttering even while speaking.
“The doctors could not decide what had happened to me, but there was something wrong with my bones and muscles,” said Lalita, who was also finding it difficult to speak.
Pointing to the pump used for drinking water, his mother Shanti Devi said that initially the water coming from here looks clear but soon salt starts freezing in the vessel.
He told, “We get salty drinking water here, due to which there is pain in different parts of the body. Our children are getting disabled at different ages, some in six months, some in 12 months and some in five years.
He told that the government has started the work of laying pipelines to bring water from different sources, but it has not been completed and we have to depend on groundwater.
Sakshi Singh, the principal of the primary school located in Devpura, told that 30 children study in the school, out of which five to six are physically challenged.
20 years old Sonu lives on a wheelchair. His whole body is a victim of deformity and his hands and feet are crooked.
His farmer father Ramesh Singh said, “We don’t understand what went wrong. The deformity started slowly and spread all over the body, we showed it to doctors in the cities and they attributed it to salt water.”
Harish Singh, a photographer, said the situation has worsened in the last two decades. Two of his children are handicapped.
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