Bangladesh is a tropical country. More than 75 per cent of the population is living in rural areas, who are vulnerable to the arsenic contamination. The alluvial aquifer that underlies the Ganges-Brahmaputra river basin contains arsenic in mineral form and has been widely tapped for obtaining drinking and irrigation water. For the past two decades, the water from over a million tube-wells has been slowly getting poisoned in majority of the villages. It is recorded that in 1970, a few villagers first noticed something was wrong when dark spots spread across their bodies. In 1993, they had finally learnt that they were drinking arsenic contaminated water when official tests showed 95 per cent of the village tube wells were contaminated.
Considering the above, an attempt was made to study the Government and Community Initiatives for mitigating and preventing Arsenic problem in drinking water, in two sample blocks, namely, Brahmanapara and Lakshyam of Comilla District, Bangladesh.