As a result, hundreds and thousands of people affected by groundwater arsenic have not received safe water options to be provided by the government.

Five technologies Alcan, Sidko, Tetrahedrone, READ - F and Sono validated for field test, are still awaiting approval. Once they get certificate from the authorities, the arsenic removal household plants can be given to affected people.

The government on July 20 last year issued a gazette notification that stated, "All chemical-based arsenic filters or removal plants must obtain certification from the Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) before being marketed for public use."

The reports on validation of the technologies were supposed to be submitted by May 31 but till Wednesday last none of the technologies has been approved for use and the authorities concerned could not explain the delay.

The BCSIR is working in collaboration with the Ontario Centre for Environmental Technology Advancement, OCETA, for obtaining technical know-how on validating chemical-based arsenic removal plants.

The idea was to complete the task of the technical advisory committee (TAG) which earlier recommended wide use of chemical based-technologies without doing physical analyses of the technologies.

In January 2002, the BCSIR asked the Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project (BAMWSP) to submit the first batch of technologies for 'Environmental Technology Verification -- Arsenic Mitigation' (ETV-AM). Earlier the BAMWSP and the BCSIR signed a partnership agreement to do the job of validating the technologies.

On March 9, 2002, a total of 17 arsenic removal technologies were sent for participation, in the process of validation by the BCSIR. Five technologies were short-listed and their field-tests are still going on in Chapainawabganj, Manikganj, Hajiganj, Bera in Pabna and Kolaroa in Satkhira. None of the field tests started on time as equipment and accessories were not in place.

Azizul Islam Kazi, a senior scientist engaged in the validation process at the BCSIR, said, "We did not have equipment and necessary accessories in place so the process has been delayed."

A second batch of 12 arsenic removal technologies was submitted to the BCSIR on December 31, 2002. As validation of the first batch of technologies is not yet complete, field-testing of the second batch is also uncertain.

Sources said the total allocation for the validation process has already been spent and there is hardly any fund left for starting field-tests of the second batch. There are also allegations of fund misappropriation. The CIDA provided Canadian $ 3,952,800 for the validation project.

The Daily Star contacted the OCETA to know why things did not progress as per the agreement, what was the latest position and how funds were utilised. But despite repeated reminders, the OCETA did not provide any information. The OCETA also failed to respond to a questionnaire submitted to it by The Daily Star.