The radium equivalent activity (Req) of the soil samples tabu- lated in Table 1 ranges from 114 to 157 Bq kg 1 with the average value of 141 Bq kg 1. This value is less than 370 Bq kg 1 which is accepted for safe use as recommended by the OECD (1979). No
uniform trend in the variation of terrestrial radioactivity has been found from the studied area.
The air absorbed dose rate calculated from activity concentra-
tion is tabulated in Table 3. From which it can be seen that air absorbed dose rate ranges between 6 to 17 nGy h 1, 25 to
41 nGy h 1 and 12 to 30 nGy h 1 with the mean value of
11 nGy h 1, 34 nGy h 1, 23 nGy h 1 for 226Ra, 232Th and 40K, re- spectively. The total absorbed dose rate varies from 56 to
77 nGy h 1 with an average value of 68 nGy h 1, which is found
to be less than the Global and Indian average value of 86 nGy h 1
and 90 nGy h 1 respectively as reported by UNSCEAR (2000).
The annual effective indoor and outdoor gamma dose rates calculated in the study area ranges from 0.27 to 0.38 mSv and 0.07