International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development

Authors
Moumita Mozumder, Shubham Pramanik, Shyamal Kumar Mandal, S Rohatgi

Abstract
The Mahananda River is a trans-boundary river, mainly fed by rainwater, originated from the Himalayas in the district of Darjeeling of West Bengal state. It flows through northern part of West Bengal, Bihar in India and Panchagarh district of Bangladesh. It again enters India in the Malda district of West Bengal. During summer or winter it has very low water level but during monsoon it carries large amount of rainwater often causing floods. One of the most important places by the side of this river is Siliguri, known as corridor of North-Eastern states and principal commercial, tourism, transportation, and educational center of Northern part in West Bengal, India. The People of Siliguri are highly dependent on this river water to meet their demand for drinking and other domestic activities on regular basis. But at present time being river Mahananda is facing a serious water pollution problem due to several reasons. The physico-chemical characteristics of Mahananda river water are continuously deteriorating due to discharge of untreated industrial and domestic wastewater and also agricultural runoff from its catchment areas. Bacteriological load in Mahananda river water is extensively high which indicates the unsuitability to use of raw water for any domestic activities by the people of Siliguri Municipal Corporation areas.