Events & Issues

New Delhi, 23 May 2011

Rising Air Pollution

DANGER, WATCH OUT

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

Pollution is on the rise in India.  Whereby, Indians are exposed to dangerous levels of highly toxic gases, including carcinogenic organic compounds and sulphur fumes, through the air we breathe. The levels of air borne suspended particulate matter recorded in the four metropolitan cities, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bengaluru far exceeded air quality standards adopted by India and other developing countries.

Worse, according to the Community Environment Monitoring (CEM) report released a few years ago the country is “pathetically behind in infrastructure to safeguard the people’s health and environment from air pollution”. More. India’s air pollution monitoring is not only primitive but it has no standards for most of the toxic and commonly found air pollutants. Bluntly, the air in the country is unfit to breathe.

Needless to say, the human impact on the environment has been disastrous. Thanks to western-induced strategies of development and the consumerist approach to life and living which have accentuated the crisis. One, by altering the land use of nearly half of the surface has resulted in the loss of biological and genetic diversity. Two, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased nearly 30 per cent.

Three,   air pollution from vehicles and industrial establishments have killed over 40,000 people prematurely annually and another over 2 million have died from indoor pollution, mostly in rural area. Four, the rapid decline in forests an alarming pace has led to rise in toxic gases and global warming.

Automobile emissions of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur account for over 60 per cent of air pollution in our cities. In fact, auto-mobilisation has led to critical SPM levels, exceeding one-and-a-half times the permissible standard in over half of the cities. So pervasive is the phenomenon that even smaller cities have become its victim. Besides, the four metropolises, the congested ‘hotspots’ include Raipur, Kanpur, Alwar and Indore.

Another study conducted by preventive medicine experts of the Asia-Pacific Network on Pollution & Health (APNPH), revealed that a sudden rise in carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and lead content in the air put people with a history of heart ailments at great risk and is one of the main reasons for the increase in cardio-vascular diseases.  It also underscored that polluted air’s effect was more severe than cocaine use. Shockingly, over 50 per cent of asthmatic patients too have been traced to pollution.

Moreover, a comparative study of air pollution levels in 17 cities by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) found respiratable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) and suspended particulate matter (SPM) levels above the national standards. Delhi, the first city to implement clean air initiatives, still has critical levels of RSPM and SPM in the residential areas.

The SPM level has hovered around 333 ug/ms since 2000 when the number of vehicles in the Capital were 30 lakhs. Obviously the 15 lakhs new vehicles that have been added to Delhi’s roads have to shoulder the blame for the current state of affairs. Also, a jump in registration of diesel vehicles has led to an increase in the level of nitrogen oxide, higher than the pre-1995 era, when pollutants had chocked Delhi.

The study indicated disturbing times ahead for Mumbai where the RSPM level show an upward trend taking the pollution level above the national standard of 60 ug/m3. In Agra, Lucknow and Kolkata, the particulate matter has witnessed an upward trend. The situation is particularly bad in Kolkata with the RSPM 1.5 times above the national standard because of inadequate poorly maintained road space and the entry of many highly pollutant commercial vehicles inside the city. Indeed, automobiles contribute over 30 per cent to the city’s air pollution load.

While the CPCB study admitted that the rising number of vehicles is the cause for acceleration of air pollution, the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE) attributed the reason to rampant violation of pollution standards, which are not enforced by the regulatory authorities.

Commissioned to study the impact of the Supreme Court’s direction to the Government to implement pollution abatement programmes since 1995, the CPCB urged the Government to prepare action plans regarding restricting the entry of commercial vehicles (and even inter-state buses) in cities, phasing out in-use vehicles, encouraging alternative fuels and giving incentives for clean air technologies.

Apart from this, indoor air pollution, resulting from chulhas burning wood, coal and animal dung as fuel is another big problem, claiming 5 lakh lives in India every year, most of whom are women and children. Burning solid fuels emit carbon monoxide, particulates, benzene and formaldehyde, which can result in pneumonia, asthma, blindness, lung cancer, TB and low birth weight.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India accounts for 80 per cent of the 600,000 premature deaths that occur in South East Asia annually due to exposure to indoor air pollution. Nearly 70 per cent of rural households do not even have proper ventilation.

The WHO programme called for smokeless chulhas or liquid cooking gas cylinders for the rural poor as they would not only improve ventilation but also reduce incidents of indoor pollution deaths by half. For this over $ 650 million would be needed to change the way most of the world cooks. The WHO has managed to raise about 15-20 per cent of the funds but a lot more needs to be done in this regard.

In sum, it is imperative that we control air quality. Towards that end, more rigid regulatory standards need to be maintained and the CPCB should join hands with the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) to ensure that air quality is closely monitored and fines imposed on all agencies and individuals for violating rules and environmental standards.

In the urban centres, more efficient and non-polluting public transport long-with non-mechanized modes have to be promoted. If Paris can have 200 km of bicycle paths with 250,000 people using them, so can Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata. However, in the rural areas, there is need to promote smokeless chulhas for which the Government should come out with a subsidy scheme and ensure that each house has some form of ventilation. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)