Are We ‘Learning By Doing’?

Abstract

Ever since the discovery of arsenic contamination of groundwater in West Bengal, there have been numerous interventions. But the sufferings of those affected have not been addressed. To understand this dichotomy better, we need to ask a simple question: What explains the outcome of intervention programmes? To this end we analysed official documents and statistics and interpolated the findings to real-life experiences we gathered during our in-depth field surveys. We tried to comprehend the major lack of cohesion in interdepartmental, interdisciplinary as well as end result related parameters across the entire mitigation endeavour till date.