Devolution of more powers to panchayats in the management of national rural drinking water mission and the issues of arsenic and shortage of drinking water will figure prominently at the two-day national conference of state ministers of rural drinking water supply and sanitation beginning in New Delhi tomorrow. The state minister for public health engineering department (PHED), Mr Subrata Mukherjee, will attend the conference to discuss the state's progress reports on the utilisation of allocated funds, as well as funding for research and development projects on water and sanitation in institutes, universities, colleges and non-governmental organisations. West Bengal failed to meet national targets in rural drinking water and sanitation in the 2011-12 financial year, figures from the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) for the rural water supply sector show. The Union ministry of rural drinking water and sanitation has published agenda notes ahead of tomorrow's meeting on rural drinking water supplies, which show that West Bengal used only 67.2 per cent of its Rs 267.88 crore allocation last year. According to an IMIS report released in April 2012, over a third of the wells in West Bengal are considered arsenic affected and iron contaminated. Despite this, the PHED has failed to meet national targets on water quality and surveillance training, chemical field testing and water testing with field test kits. Jadavpur University's School of Environmental Studies director of research Professor Dipankar Chakraborty said today: “There are potentially up to 15 million people in West Bengal from 12 districts affected by arsenic-contaminated water.” Many people detected to have been exposed to arsenic contaminated water in the early 1980s are now suffering from different forms of cancer, he said. However, West Bengal is one of the 14 states recorded to be successfully carrying out the transfer of public water systems to the panchayats, which involves training district workers in the operation and maintenance of hand pumps. Arsenic problem to be discussed NEW DELHI, 24 MAY: Rural development and drinking water and sanitation minister Jairam Ramesh will review problems concerning drinking water, including the problem of arsenic and fluoride in eastern Indian states at the conference tomorrow. The Union Cabinet had on 13 October 2011 decided to earmark 3 per cent of its then budget of Rs 9350 crore to monitor the quality of drinking water to deal with arsenic presence in water in states like West Bengal. The drinking water budget for 2012-13 has been raised by 40 per cent. The government will, for the first time, set up an International Centre for Water Quality in Kolkata to deal with problems relating to arsenic contamination. sns