Seafood is the major source of food of large number of people residing in the coastal area of Maharashtra. Fish samples namely Megalaspis cordyla, Sepia aculeate, Arius dussumieri, Cynoglossus macrolepidotus, Coilia dussumieri (Vile Parle) and Lepturacanthus lepturus, Escuolosa thoracata, Parastromateus niger, Arius dussumieri, and Ilisha filigera (Dadar) were collected directly from the two suburban markets (Vile Parle and Dadar) of Mumbai coast. These fish samples were dried in the laboratory and, the dried fishes were crushed into a fine powder by mortal and pestle and stored in amber colored bottles in vacuum desiccators. These samples were evaluated by Atomic Absorption spectrophotometer for the determination of the six heavy metals namely Zinc, Manganese, and Iron, Lead, Cadmium and Mercury. It is reported in the literature that the level of Zn in fishes is generally above the tolerable limits. In our present study, we found that the level of Zn in fishes from Vile Parle and Dadar market was also above the tolerable limits. Our data for Mn revels is comparable with the similar data reported in the literature. Iron was the dominant metal measured during this study. From our study it was found that the concentration of Fe in different species of fishes collected from Vile Parle and Dadar markets was quite high as also reported in earlier literature. Thus the values of Fe in present suggest severe contamination in the seafood in recent years. The level of Pb, in our study is within tolerable limits. The concentrations of Cd, in marketed fishes in our study were far lower than the consumption safety tolerance in fishes set by countries elsewhere. According to the results obtained, the Hg, level in the samples of the fishes collected from the Vile Parle and Dadar markets were found below the tolerable limits than the permissible level.
Contamination, Heavy metals, fish, Seafood, Spectroscopy
