The study is based on our last 19 years survey on groundwater arsenic contamination in Ganga-Meghna-Brahmaputra (GMB) plain. The area comprises of 5,69,749 km2, with a population of over 500 million. It can be predicted that a good portion of all the states in Ganga-Brahmaputra plain in India (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam and other North Eastern hill states) and Bangladesh in Padma-Meghna- Brahmaputra (old) are arsenic affected.
Arsenic crisis in India dates back to as early as 1976 when a preliminary survey (1) on arsenic in dugwells, hand pumps and spring water from Chandigarh and different villages of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh in northern India was reported. Officially, arsenic poisoning in West Bengal was first reported by a dermatologist K.C. Saha of School of Tropical Medicine (STM), Calcutta ( Kolkata, previously known as Calcutta) to an outdoor patient of village Ramnagar of Baruipur police station in the district of South 24-Parganas on 6th July, 1983 (Docket No. S/158/33/83). Later it came out that many arsenic patients existed in many villages well before 1983 but they could not be clinically diagnosed, so were not highlighted. According to A. K. Chakraborty, an epidemiologist of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH), Calcutta who reported on 4th December 1983 (2), “for more than a year physicians were baffled by several cases of hyper-pigmentation which kept coming to them at regular intervals”.
During 1983-1989 the following organizations in West Bengal viz. (a) School of Tropical Medicine (STM), Calcutta (b) All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH), (c) Central Ground Water Board (Eastern Region) (d) Centre for Study of Man and Environment, Calcutta (e) Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), Government of West Bengal (f) SSKM – Hospital, Calcutta (g) Directorate of Health Services, Government of West Bengal were working on the problem of groundwater arsenic contamination. R. Garai, A. K. Chakraborty, S. B. Dey, and K.C. Saha (3) had first warned of malignancy in the hyperkeratosis spots and liver if the diagnosis was delayed.
Saha and Poddar reported (4) in 1986, 36 villages from 18 police stations/blocks of 6 districts are arsenic affected. These districts were 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Nadia, Bardhaman, Maldah and Medinipur. Although one patient from Ramnagar police station of Medinipur was reported in 1986 but later on we found that he was actually from an affected district Nadia but settled in Medinipur. From 36 villages water samples from 207 hand tubewells were analyzed and 105 (50.7%) showed arsenic concentration above 50 μg/L and highest concentration revealed was 586 μg/L. They further stated that cutaneous malignancy found in 3 out of 1000 cases of chronic arsenical dermatosis. Analysis of arsenic in hair, nail, and skin-scale from the people in the affected villages confirmed arsenic toxicity and identified subclinical arsenic toxicity in some people. Conducting an epidemiological survey in 6 villages from 3 districts (24 Parganas, Bardhaman, Nadia) Chakraborty & Saha reported in 1987 (5), 12 ascites patients out of 197 having arsenical dermatosis and one of whom developed skin cancer eventually. They further added that lowest concentration of arsenic in water producing dermatosis was found to be 200 μg/l. Three deaths were reported due to chronic arsenic poisoning. Out of 71 water samples tested from the affected villages, 55 (77.5%) had arsenic concentration above the Indian permissible limit of 50 μg/l.
In 1988, Guha Mazumder (6) showed evidence of chronic arsenical dermatosis and hepatomegaly in 62 out of 67 members who drank arsenic contaminated water (200 – 2000 μg/l) based on an epidemiological investigation from an arsenic affected area of Ramnagar village, Baruipur block, 24 Parganas. In contrast only 6 out of 96 persons from the same area who drank safe water (below 50 μg/l) had non-specific hepatomegaly, while none had skin lesions.
School of Environmental Studies (SOES), Jadavpur University joined the arsenic work at the beginning of 1988. From August 1989 to December 1991 more information about suffering of people from the blocks of the districts in Maldah, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas were unearthed by continued research (7-11). The first report of SOES was published in May, 1991 (12) based on a door to door preliminary survey in 5 out of 6 arsenic affected districts (except Bardhaman) of West Bengal. The survey revealed that about 3 million people were at risk in the arsenic affected areas. Our medical survey could identify altogether 600 arsenic patients from 86 villages. In November, 1991 another preliminary report was published (13) exclusively on Bardhaman (also known as Burdwan) district, identifying 77 arsenic patients from 7 villages. In these two reports (12, 13) on the basis of 1800 water samples analysis from 93 villages from 13 police stations and identification of 600 arsenic patients from 1988 to 1991, SOES warned the government of imminent danger.
From July 1992 to early 1995 a considerable number of news articles were published in daily newspapers both in Calcutta as well as in the capital of India, based on the door to door survey report of SOES from the affected six districts (14-25). School of Environmental Studies (SOES) while analyzing the water samples from Calcutta identified arsenic patients in Jadavpur in southern part of Calcutta. At least 10 patients were identified from the area (26). Immediately after the publication of SOES report, the Calcutta Municipal Corporation vehemently opposed this fact stating (27) that 13 tubewells from Jadavpur were all safe with regard to arsenic. In March 1994, SOES published yet another report on arsenic problem of South 24-Parganas (28). In this, other than the magnitude of the spreading calamity and suffering of people, social problems due to arsenical diseases was also stressed. The report stated, “The social problems arising due to arsenical skin lesions in these districts are becoming of serious concern. Even the affected wives are sent back to their parents together with their children. Malnutrition, poor socio-economic condition, illiteracy, food habits and intake of arsenic contaminated water through many years have aggravated the arsenic toxicity”. A news report published in Analyst (29) identified that 312 village, in 37 police stations in 6 districts to be arsenic affected and faced that more than 8,00,000 people in the affected villages were continuing to drink arsenic contaminated water above 50 μg/l.
SOES after working for seven years in arsenic affected villages of West Bengal realized the impact of the problem. In 1994 it was realized by the authorities, scientists, international aid agencies like WHO, UNICEF as well as common people should be alerted about the magnitude and seriousness of arsenic problem unless the grim arsenic situation in West Bengal would continue to be neglected from all quarters. In order to invite international attention on the problem SOES arranged an international conference of 6-8 February in 1995 with additional 3 days field visit in arsenic affected area. This proved to be a turning point in the history of arsenic research in west Bengal.
SOES placed in this conference (30) their preliminary report of survey conducted for last 7 years in 6 arsenic affected districts. In this it was mentioned that 405 villages/wards from 37 police stations were found to be arsenic affected and more than 1.0 million people might be constantly drinking arsenic contaminated water above 50 μg/l from these six districts. They put an estimate of around 2,00,000 people to be suffering from arsenic toxicity.
During and immediately after the conference most of the national and some of the international media published and aired the articles and programs highlighting the magnitude and severity of the problem. Altogether arsenic experts from 20 different countries participated at the conference and they were horrified by the magnitude of the problem (31, 32). One of the experts Bill Chappell from the University of Colorado, USA who attended the conference said, “The chronic arsenic poisonings occurring in West Bengal represent the single-largest environmental health problem I know of, other than that associated with the Chernobyl disaster” (33). Epidemiologist Allan Smith added, “the problems are very serious and warrant a very high priority for solutions and further investigations” (34). The seriousness of the problem and need of immediate action to be taken were highlighted by various experts (35-38).
Immediately after the conference, the Secretary of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), Government of West Bengal, the nodal agency to look after the arsenic problem of West Bengal issued a statement in the newspaper in which he apprehended 30 to 40 lakhs people in West Bengal to be potentially at risk of arsenic poisoning through drinking water. The report identified 8 to 10 lakhs of people as already affected and 10,000 – 15,000 as showing positive sign of poisoning (39).
Although the overall attitude of government was not to accept the magnitude of the arsenic calamity, the policy faced criticism from some of the top officials. In a report the Secretary of PHED said, “The state government policy on controlling arsenic poisoning lacks transparency while the functioning of the department needs openness” (40). More and more arsenic incidents, suffering and death started surfacing from the SOES field survey (41) and groundwater arsenic contamination was reported from proper Calcutta by SOES (42). However, Calcutta Municipal Corporation denied any such contamination (43). In continuing surveys, more and more arsenic affected districts were added to our list in 1997 and SOES reported (44), 830 villages from 58 blocks of 8 arsenic districts of West Bengal to be affected. If we consider Calcutta as separate district the number of affected districts rises to nine. These districts are Maldah, Murshidabad, Bardhaman, Nadia, Haora, Hugli, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Calcutta. In the middle of 1997, the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed a team to study the arsenic problem in West Bengal. The team appointed by WHO criticized the state government for lacking initiative and seriousness in tackling the spread of arsenic poisoning (45-47).
In early 1999, on the basis of 58,166 water analysis from 9 arsenic affected districts we reported (48) 985 villages in 69 police stations / blocks as being arsenic affected and 4420 people had already been registered with arsenical skin lesion. Every time we went on a field survey, we identified 10-15 new arsenic affected villages where villagers continued to drink arsenic contaminated water without being aware of the contamination. Even such a situation did not prevent the Chief Engineer (Arsenic), of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), Government of West Bengal from assuring delegates at the international conference in Bangladesh (49, 50), with the quoted lines ".... in 1994 there were about, 1100 identified cases of arsenocosis, the acute stage of arsenic poisoning, in areas of West Bengal. The number has since come down to 450. So far we have not found arsenic beyond the permissible level in any tube-well sunk to deeper aquifer in the affected areas. Even if there are traces, those are within the permissible level of 50 μg/l. If it exceeds the limit at any place we have the technology to treat the water by using simple method. Arsenic free drinking water is now supplied to the door steps of the people in the affected areas through pipe line network". It is surprising to note that the Health Minister of West Bengal in an interview on 5th April 1999 with a representative of the Medical World (51) had characterized that the present arsenic situation of West Bengal as being much better than what it was 15 years earlier at such critical juncture. Further, SOES first reported groundwater arsenic contamination in southern part of Calcutta on 8th March 1993 and identified people suffering from arsenical skin lesion (26). Government of West Bengal totally denied the findings. In January 1996 we reported more arsenic affected areas in southern part of Calcutta and our results being denied by both government of West Bengal and Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) (42). Again during October 2000 (52) we reported arsenic to be above WHO maximum permissible limit in two well known private nursing homes (Kothari Medical Centre & Woodland Nursing Home), the Zoological Garden, the National Library and certain Housing Complexes. This report though it was denied at first was confirmed by the government later in January 2001 (53). The arsenic problem of Calcutta City was reported by us in 1993 and it took 8 years for the government to accept the truth.
In 2002, we published a summary of groundwater arsenic contamination situation in West Bengal (54) where we showed on basis of more than 1,05,000 water samples analysis more than six million people from nine arsenic affected districts out of total 19 districts are drinking water containing more than 50 μg/L As and 2700 villages were identified to be affected.
In 2003, we highlighted (55) the groundwater arsenic contamination situation concentrating on one of the nine districts, North 24 Parganas, where we mentioned based on 48,030 sample analyses that 29.2 % of the tubewells had arsenic above 50μg/L; out of 22 blocks in twenty we found arsenic above this limit.
In 2004, we came out with another update (56) on arsenic contamination situation; Based on 1,29,552 samples analysis we showed 24.7% had arsenic above 50 μg/L and we identified 3200 arsenic affected villagers in 85 affected blocks in nine districts. We also predicted in this study that around 6.5 million people in the state could be drinking water having more than 50 μg/L As.
To understand the exact magnitude of groundwater arsenic contamaintion and its health effects in West Bengal, we have studied one arsenic affected district Murshidabad out of nine affected district in details for last five years with twenty people in our group including dermatologist, neurologist, gynecologist, pathologist, analytical chemist, biochemist, geologist, civil engineer etc. We have analyzed about 30,000 water samples from this district alone and screened 24,274 people with our medical group for arsenical skin lesions and other related arsenic toxicity. We have also analyzed 3,843 biological samples (hair, nail, urine and skin scales). Based on our detailed studies in Murshidabad district, we published five papers. We have done semi micro and micro level studies in one block Jalangi (57), one gram Panchayet (cluster of villages) Sagarpara (58), and one village Rajapur (59), and also the district Murshidabad as a whole (60,61).
In 1988 when we commenced arsenic survey in West Bengal, we knew about 22 affected (As > 50 μg/L) villages in five districts now according to our latest survey the number of affected villages increased to 3417 in 111 blocks in nine districts. During last 19 years with every additional survey we noticed an increasing number of contaminated villages and more affected people. These findings have been reported in number of international journals, monographs and book chapters (62-91).
In 1992 we identified arsenic groundwater contamination in Padma-Meghna-Brahmaputra (PMB) plain of Bangladesh where people were drinking arsenic contaminated water and suffering from arsenical skin lesions (44,92,93). In 2001 groundwater arsenic contamination in the Terai region of Nepal was revealed (94). In June 2002 we discovered arsenic contamination in Bihar in middle Ganga plain and apprehended contamination in Uttar Pradesh lying in middle and upper Ganga plain (95). During Oct. 2003-Dec. 2003 we identified 25 arsenic affected villages of Ballia district in UP and people suffering from arsenical skin lesions. Between Dec. 2003 and Jan. 2004 we further found groundwater arsenic contamination in 698 hand tubewells from 17 villages of the Sahibganj district of Jharkhand state, India in the middle Ganga plain and consequent suffering of hundreds of people. Again a preliminary survey during Jan–Feb 2004 in Assam showed 26% of 137 hand tubewells analyzed in 2 districts had arsenic concentration above 50μg/L. According to our latest estimates, a good portion of all the states and countries in the Ganga- Meghna-Brahmaputra (GMB) plain may be at risk from groundwater arsenic contamination (56). So far (up to December 2005) we have collected and analyzed 140150 water samples from all 19 districts covering 241 of 341 total blocks from West Bengal India. We found arsenic contamination above 10 and 50μg/L in 148 and 111 blocks in 14 and 12 districts respectively. From whole GMB plain we analyzed 211955 water samples. Figure 1 shows the groundwater arsenic contamination status in different countries and different states in GMB Plain. Table 1 shows the contamination situation in GMB plain at a glance and Figure 1 shows the Groundwater arsenic contamination in states and countries of the GMB Plain (according to our latest survey report up to December 2005) This communication deals with the present ground water arsenic contamination situation of West Bengal along with the consequential health effects on the basis of our last 19 years research work on the issue.
The common social problems due to arsenic toxicity as we have noticed from West Bengal, India are as follows:
1) Affected wives are sent back, sometimes even with their children, to their parents.
2) Marriage of people of either sex from the affected villages is difficult.
3) Often jobs / service are denied / ignored to the arsenic affected persons.
4) When a husband or wife is singled out as an arsenic patient, the social problems crop up and may destroy the social fabric.
5) Due to ignorance, the villagers sometimes view it as a case of leprosy and force the arsenic patients to follow an isolated life.
In arsenic affected areas of West Bengal and Bangladesh arsenic contaminated water is not only used for drinking and cooking but also for agricultural irrigation. Thus arsenic comes into the food chain. In the affected areas villagers also consume arsenic from Pantavat1 and water added to food preparations like rice, soup, curry and tea. This aspect has been currently highlighted in a few publications (108-110). As we have described about an arsenic affected village, Kolsur Gram Panchayet (GP) in Deganga block of North 24 Parganas District in West Bengal, in one of our publications (108), “From the results of total amount of arsenic consumed (drinking water + rice + vegetables + pantavat + water added for food preparation) the body burden to North Kolsur villagers (1185.0 μg for per adult per day, 653.2 μg for per child per day), as the amount of arsenic coming form rice, vegetables, and water added for Pantavat1 and food preparation is 485 μg, i.e., 41% of the total for adults and 253.2 μg, i.e., 38.8% for children and from rice and vegetables 285 μg, i.e., 24% of total for adults and 153.2 μg i.e., 23.4% for children. Our findings show that most of the arsenic coming from food is inorganic in nature.”
The magnitude of arsenic calamity seems to be severe from the overall study of groundwater arsenic contamination and its health effect in Murshidabad. Only in Murshidabad district we reported (60) that 2.6 million and 1.2 million people are at risk of drinking arsenic contaminated water above 10μg/L and 50μg/L respectively. Extrapolating the data we generated we found that about 9.5 and 4.6 million people may be at risk of drinking arsenic contaminated water above 10 and 50 μg/L respectively and, an estimated 0.8 million above 300 μg/L.
One of our assumptions for the estimation of population at risk was that, people have been drinking from the same contaminated tubewell all along from the time of analysis. But during last 10 years lot of awareness campaigns were launched in the affected areas to teach people vices of arsenic contamination and to test their tubewell for arsenic before use. Also different alternative safe water options have been made available to affected population like purified surface supply water, deep tubewells, dugwells, arsenic removal plants etc. Due to this gradual switchover to safe options actual population drinking arsenic contaminated water (> 50 μg/L) may be less than the predicted ones.
During our last 10 year survey of the arsenic affected districts of West Bengal, we noticed (112, 113) that within a span of 3-7 years in some villages, tubewells that had initially been safe (arsenic<10 μg/L) became contaminated (arsenic>50 μg/L) in course of time. Furthermore, the arsenic concentration in many tubewells had increased by as much as 5-20 folds (112,113).
West Bengal is village dominated and in remote villages more than 95% people drink private or public hand tubewell water. In urban and semi urban areas drinking water source is usually purified surface water or deep tubewell (above 100m depth) supplied through pipe line by public authorities though sometimes due to bacterial contamination (owing to underground pipeline leakage) people use hand tubewell water. There are districts in West Bengal like West Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri etc where due to plenty of available surface water and dugwell a decade before hand tubewells were few. At present due to lowering of water table people are switching to tubewells. This is a common practice allover the GMB plain including arsenic affected areas. Additionally since the launch of green revolution in India in 1960, due to gradual depletion of surface water resources and irregular monsoons, irrigation is one of the major sources of groundwater withdrawal. So exploitation of groundwater by tubewells continues unabated.
It is well established that shallow tubewells in arsenic contaminated areas may not be safe. It is also observed that in the Gangetic plain As contamination in hand tubewells has been observed to decrease after a certain depth (114) but in unconfined aquifers there appears to be no depth guarantee, even if the construction of tube well is done properly. Based on our nineteen year long study over different parts of the GMB plain on groundwater arsenic contamination we observed that deep tubewells (>150m) may not always provide safe source of drinking water. Safety of deep tubewells depends on several factors: i) construction of the deep tubewell, ii) depth of the deep tubewell iii) presence of confined aquifer, and iv) the aquifer should be under a thick clay barrier. However, a note of caution in West Bengal is, many tube wells that were safe (As < 10μg/l) became contaminated (above 50μg/l) over time (112-113). So periodic testing for water contaminants is important.
With the advent of hand tubewells the use of dug wells subsided largely because of bacterial contamination of the dugwell water and consequent enteric diseases prevailing among the users. This called for wide scale abandoning of these dug wells. In this age of acute scarcity of water when it is predicted that toilet flush water would need to be recycled for use in future for potable water, this vast source of water should not at all be neglected. Proper management of dugwell would necessitate the following factors: i) Concrete structure with a storage tank. ii) Proper selection of location, iii) Preventing surface contamination, using a fine net / glass fiber screen over it, iv) Cleaning monthly with lime and sodium hypochlorite and removal of some amount of bottom sediment [During cleaning the dugwell water is to be stored in storage tank for supply] and v) If bacteria are even not detected after periodic cleaning we recommend a few drops of sodium hypochlorite (depending on water in dugwell) to be added at night everyday. If affordable a UV source (if electricity is available) after storage tank will help. Once a year removal of bottom sediment from dugwell is necessary and this will also take care of sand building.
In Betai region of Dangapara GP, block Tehatta, district Nadia a properly managed dugwell (photograph available on our website www.soesju.org) caters to drinking water need of 100 families.
In many states of India and southern parts of Bangladesh, the harvesting of rainwater is still a common practice. In present scenario if rainwater is harvested through clean roof top collection into storage tanks, and precautions are taken against bacterial contamination, the stored rainwater can be used for at least 4-5 months per year. In arsenic affected areas of Thailand this is a common practice. English people during their stay in Kolkata, a century ago, used to drink freshly collected rainwater.
One of the possible arsenic mitigation strategies was installation of Arsenic Removal Plant (ARP). Installation of ARPs in West Bengal-India started at the end of 1998. The West Bengal government and other organizations have already invested about 3 million dollars in installing ARPs purchased from both national and international manufacturers (1900 ARPs were set up at an average price of US$1500 for each ARP) in mainly 5 out of 9 arsenic affected districts of West Bengal, India.
Our preliminary investigations on the efficiency of ARPs in West Bengal began in late 1998. During last 7 years we evaluated the efficiency of 577 APRs in the districts of North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, and Nadia of West Bengal till date and submitted our evaluation reports to the Government of West-Bengal, ARP manufacturers and other concerned NGOs for their information and follow-up action (115-119).
We conducted a two-year long systematic study in order to evaluate the efficiency of 19 ARPs from 11 different national and international manufacturers installed in Baruipur block of South 24 Parganas district under a project titled ‘Technology Park Project’ implemented by All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH), Govt. of India, Kolkata, in partnership with a number of NGOs under the financial support from India- Canada Environment Facility (ICEF), New Delhi. Ineffectiveness and poor reliability of the ARPs based on this study has been reported (120).
From our field experience we observed that in most cases authorities installed the ARPs abruptly without checking the ground realities. Lack of awareness and relevant information is one of the major hurdles in arsenic mitigation program (121). Though we noticed (120) none of the ARPs in Technology park project could achieve arsenic concentration below WHO provisional guideline value (10 μg/l) a few of them could limit arsenic below Indian standard 50 μg/l where the users were able to recognize the ARPs as an asset for the community and maintained it properly.
We must understand that so far there is no available medicine for chronic arsenic toxicity; safe water, nutritious food, vitamins and physical exercise are the only preventive measures to fight the chronic arsenic toxicity. A recent study by Mitra et al. (122) covering 57 villages in South 24 Parganas in West Bengal highlighted that malnutrition could double the risk of skin lesions. Plenty of seasonal fruits and vegetables, which are very cheap, are available in arsenic affected villages around the GMB plain round the year. A large percentage of villagers are not aware that they can get better nutrition from local fruits and vegetables. They have to be trained how they can get nutritious food using cheap local fruits and vegetables. Cooking also destroys essential nutrients in vegetables and fruits.
For successful arsenic mitigation community involvement especially of women is essential. The concept of community participation though a new paradigm is now become integral part of any successful social venture.
Though first case of arsenocosis was revealed in West Bengal in early 1980s the widespread contamination was not recognized until 1995. Similar pattern followed in the late recognition of groundwater arsenic contamination of Bangladesh. In Bihar, till date we found 12 districts by the side of Ganga arsenic contaminated and in 6 districts identified subjects with arsenical skin lesions since the discovery of arsenic contamination back in 2002 and more are coming to fore with the continuing surveys. We predict from our up-todate preliminary survey from UP and Bihar that the districts lying in the area where Ganga and other tributaries originating from the Himalaya shifted in course of time, would be arsenic contaminated. The areas of UP and Bihar, adjacent to arsenic contaminated Terai region, Nepal may also be affected.
In India before arsenic contamination problem surfaced in 1983, we knew about fluoride contamination in groundwater from 1937. At present only in India 62 million people are suffering from fluorosis, a crippling disease. The presence of uranium, boron, and manganese in groundwater of Bangladesh above WHO prescribed limiting values has already been reported (123,124). Unless immediate measures for detailed water analysis are undertaken and awareness among all the sections of society (with especially involving women) about contaminants in drinking water is generated, toxins of higher toxicity may affect in course of time.
In Bangladesh and West Bengal, at present less people are drinking arsenic contaminated water due to growing awareness and access to arsenic safe water. But in Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, and Assam still the villagers are drinking contaminated water owing to non recognition of arsenic contamination as a problem requiring urgent action. The blunder committed in West Bengal and Bangladesh before should not be repeated.
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Mrinal Kumar Sengupta, Amir Hossain, Sad Ahamed, Bhaskar Das, Bishwajit Nayak, Arup Pal, Amitava Mukherjee, M. M. Rahman, Uttam Kumar Chowdhury, Bhajan Kumar Biswas, Tarit Roy Chowdhury, Badal Kumar Mondal, Gautam Samanta, Amit Chatterjee, Dipankar Das, Dilip Lodh, and Dipankar Chakraborti -