Indian researcher bags UK award for arsenic-free water purification in Bengal

A research project near Kolkata tackling the world's worst case of ongoing mass poisoning and creating the first low-cost chemical free arsenic removal plant has won a prestigious UK award for for Dr Bhaskar Sengupta, academic ambassador and senior lecturer in environmental engineering at Queen's University in Belfast.

Dr Sengupta's team's work on protecting the lives and livelihoods of some of the poorest, received the outstanding engineering research team of the year title at the the Times Higher Education awards.

Leading an international research team and his team in the school of planning, architecture and civil engineering, Queen's University, Dr Sengupta implemented an innovative method of removing arsenic from groundwater without using chemicals.

Currently over 70 million people in Eastern India and Bangladesh experience involuntary arsenic exposure from consuming water and rice; the main staple food in the region.

This includes farmers who have to use contaminated groundwater from minor irrigation schemes.

It is estimated that for every random sample of 100 people in the Bengal Delta, at least one person will be near death as a result of arsenic poisoning, while five in 100 will be experiencing other symptoms.