3 min readNew DelhiApr 23, 2026 06:48 PM IST
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has instructed the state governments to mitigate the arsenic and fluoride contamination of groundwater, asking the Centre to monitor the measures being adopted across the country.
Hearing a suo motu matter, the principal bench of the NGT was examining the groundwater contamination issue based on news reports and it has impleaded all 28 states, directing them to submit data on arsenic and fluoride contamination across districts, villages and blocks. The green court has also directed the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) to regularly monitor the mitigation measures adopted across states and ensure remedial action.
The bench, comprising NGT chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava and expert members A Senthil Vel and Afroz Ahmad, took on record the remedial measures suggested by CGWA, directed their implementation in an April 17 order.
Consumption of the arsenic through drinking water is a major health concern, causing arsenicosis, with symptoms such as skin lesions and abnormal pigmentation, and even cancer in case of chronic exposure. Fluoride exposure, meanwhile, impacts bone and teeth health adversely.
The court filings revealed a higher presence of arsenic in eastern and south-eastern regions, and a higher fluoride presence in central, eastern, and parts of southern and western states.
The state-wise data filed before the court also paints a grim picture. In its order, the tribunal shared that arsenic is present in 4,709 wards and fluoride in 3,789 wards in Bihar. In West Bengal, arsenic and fluoride affect eight and seven districts respectively, and 16 districts each in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, arsenic has contaminated the ground water in 20 villages in Karnataka, and fluoride over 2,083 villages.
The CGWA has suggested some remedial measures to the states, including water filtration plants, ion-exchange processes, and reverse osmosis.
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In its response to the green tribunal, Bihar submitted that arsenic removal plants have been installed in 4,684 wards, and fluoride removal plants in 3,780 of the 3,789 affected wards. Similarly West Bengal has installed over 1,500 community water purification plants, while also implementing piped water supply schemes. Uttar Pradesh, meanwhile, claimed that over 80 per cent of the state households were already covered under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
Among leading causes of the contamination are industrial pollution, use of fertilisers and pesticides, and natural processes such as weathering of rocks and soil erosion, the CGWA submitted to the court. It submitted that in Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Uttar Pradesh, the presence of arsenic is primarily associated with alluvial formations found in the Ganga and Brahmaputra river basins.
As per CGWB’s Annual Ground Water Quality Report, 2025, other states being affected by groundwater contamination include Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha.
