Arsenic contamination in water has posed severe health problems around the world. In spite of the availability of some conventional techniques for arsenic removal from contaminated water, development of new laboratory based techniques along with enhancement and cost reduction of conventional techniques are essential for the benefit of common people. This paper provides an overview of the arsenic issue in water such as modes of contamination of ground water as well as surface water by arsenic, its metabolism and health impacts, factors influencing arsenic poisoning, fundamentals of arsenic poisoning mechanism and world scenario of arsenic poisoning. It discusses and compares the conventional laboratory based techniques, like precipitation with alum, iron, Fe/Mn, lime softening, reverse osmosis, electro dialysis, ion exchanges, adsorption on activated alumina/carbon, etc., for arsenic removal from contaminated water. It also discusses the best available techniques and mentions the cost comparison among these techniques too. Recent developments in the research on the laboratory based arsenic removal techniques, like improvement of conventional techniques and advances in removal technology along with its scopes and limitations have also been reviewed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.