Arsenic (As) in water above safe limit is a concerning threat to the population when used for drinking, cooking and irrigational purposes. Rice is a leading source of inorganic As through dietary intake for people who consume rice as a staple food. Asian countries have been reported for 90% of global rice production, using irrigation groundwater as the prime source. Intake of As through rice depends equally on the amount of consumed rice and the concentration of the heavy metal in rice grains. This study provides a detailed view of As exposure in various kinds of rice grains from different As exposed areas compared with selected unexposed sites of West Bengal. The accumulation of As during pre-monsoonal and monsoonal cultivation seasons showed an important trend highlighting the effect of rain water quenching on As accumulation in rice grain from water and soil. Bioconcentration factor (BCF) drew a picture of bioaccumulation of As from irrigation water to rice grain. A significant trend of decreasing As concentration was observed from raw to cooked rice i.e., 34–89% and 25–83% (for sunned and parboiled rice, respectively) when cooked with low-As containing water (<3 μg/l).While using As contaminated (~38 μg/l) water the As concentration of most of the rice varieties decreased by 3–48%. Cooking water with ~84 μg/l of As heavily increases the cooked rice contamination percentage in most of the cases. With subsequent health risk analysis, the SAMOE (Severity Adjusted Margin of Exposure) value using ‘risk thermometer’ supports the higher risk of suffering (class 4) from both raw and cooked rice considering all the studied areas with increasing risk from parboiled rice than sunned rice grains.