ABSTRACT
Heavy metal pollution is increasing day by day due to worldwide industrialization. This problem is more severe in the third world countries where treatment and disposal of industrial ef¬uents is not properly managed. These untreated chemicals from different industries such as textile, leather, dyeing, steel and medicine (Paivoke 2002) are discharged into the environment. Sewage is added to water reservoirs used to support agricultural production over a long period of time. As a result, both ¬ora and fauna are facing the hazardous effects of soil, air and water pollution. These untreated industrial ef¬uents, in addition to other pollutants, contain large amount of heavy metals such as Pb, Cr, Cd, Ni and Zn (Srikanth and Reddy 1991).
