Punjab water 'is risk to health'

Research over a two-year period found that poisonous pesticides and heavy metals had entered the food chain.

This had caused a high prevalence of congenital deformities, cancer and kidney damage, the study said.

It was commissioned by the Punjab Water Pollution Control Board, which told the BBC it was studying the findings.

Mercury and arsenic

The report - by a team of senior doctors from the post-graduate Institute of Medical Education in Chandigarh - was conducted over the past two years.

It linked contaminated water with varying degrees of DNA mutation in people in the state.

According to the study, 80% of ground water samples had mercury that was far beyond the permissible level.

Arsenic was found in 70% of samples of effluent, 50% of tap water samples and 57.7% of ground water samples.

A high degree of pesticides had contaminated water in drains in parts of Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Nawanshahr.

The study says that blood samples collected from people in the area showed that in 65% of the cases the DNA had mutated.

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