Monitoring of Pesticide Residues in Market Basket Vegetables of Jorhat District of Assam, India.

Five sample of each vegetable in each location per month was collected from three markets of Jorhat districts for three months. Three markets are Jorhat vegetable market, Lichubari vegetable market and Teok vegetable market of Jorhat district. The vegetable species are Tomato, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Brinjal, French bean, Cow pea and Okra. Individual species of samples were mixed and analyzed in triplicate. The samples were analyzed by multi residues method using GC-ECD. The residues of various pesticides in vegetables were investigated and the main group of contaminant was the OCs followed by SPs. The contamination by OC group viz., αHCH ranged from 0.001 to 0.003 µg g -1 , β-HCH ranged from 0.001 to 0.003 µg g -1 , δ-HCH ranged from 0.001 to 0.004 µg g -1 , alachlor ranged from 0.001 to 0.002 µg g -1 , aldrin ranged from 0.001 to 0.003 µg g -1 , endosulfan-I ranged from 0.001 to 0.003 µg g -1 , butachlor ranged from 0.001 to 0.004 µg g -1 , P,P’-DDE ranged from 0.001 to 0.002 µg g -1 , endosulfan-II ranged from 0.001 to 0.002 µg g -1 , P,P’-DDD ranged from 0.001-0.003µg g -1 and P,P’-DDT ranged from 0.001-0.002µg g -1 . The contamination by SP group viz. fenpropathrin ranged from 0.001 to 0.003µg g -1 , λ-cyhalothrin ranged from 0.001 to 0.003µg g -1 , α-cypermethrin ranged from 0.001 to 0.002 µg g -1 and deltamethrin ranged from 0.001 to 0.003µg g -1 . The highest contaminated sample is brinjal followed by cauliflower, cabbage and tomato. Among the OC compound the major contaminants were β-HCH followed by δ-HCH , α-HCH, P,P’-DDE and P,P’-DDT.