Phytoremediation - An Innovative Approach for Attenuation of Chromium Toxicity and Rice Cultivation in Mining Areas

Industries play a vital part in progress of human civilization. The process of industrialization leads to several detrimental effects on human health and environment with its toxic discharges. Among several developing countries, India is considered as a country having huge natural resources with emerging industrial avenues for satisfying the growing demands of ever-increasing population. As a result of huge quantities of pollutants released through various industrial and mining activities our environment is getting degraded day-by-day. Because of commercial application of minerals, Government has augmented more mining activities along with rapid industrialization process. However, as a fall out, heavy metal-contaminated land is an important environmental health issue in India. In view of severe pollution problems, arising due to various anthropogenic, industrial and mining activities with special reference to opencast mining activities, a number of eco-friendly biotechnological interventions are employed to combat these pollution problems. It is a major concern of researchers worldwide to attenuate various toxic pollutants from environment by application of innovative tools and techniques. Bioremediation technology, phytoremediation technique, biosorption techniques, phytomining/biomining techniques, development of pollution resistant transgenic crops, biotic and abiotic stress resistance in modified organisms or by natural means, microbial applications for environmental sustainability are important among those novel biotechnological approaches.