Congress hits out at government over air quality report putting India as 5th most polluted country

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday attacked the government after a world air quality report ranked India as the world's fifth most polluted country, and demanded that all "anti-people" environmental law amendments over the past 10 years be rolled back.

In a statement, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said the Swiss air quality technology company IQAIR has just released its 2024 World Air Quality Report which finds that India is the world's fifth most polluted country.

The Rajya Sabha MP said in his statement that according to the report, India's population-weighted average concentration of fine particulate matter is 50.6 µg/m3 which is 10 times the WHO's annual guideline level of 5 µg/m3.

He claimed that according to the report, 74 of the world's 100 most polluted cities are in India, and national capital New Delhi is the second-most polluted city in the world after Brynihat in Meghalaya.

"Among the lesser-known tragedies of the non-biological PM's reign is the rapidly deteriorating air quality nationally and the inattentiveness and policy chaos that has characterised the government's response to it," he said in his statement.

Ramesh cited several studies in the past about air pollution-linked fatalities in the country.

In early July 2024, he said, a study published in the prestigious Lancet journal showed that 7.2 percent of all deaths in India are associated with air pollution which comes about 34,000 deaths each year in just 10 cities.

The former environment minister said that around the same time, a study by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that the government's interventions in pollution control are poorly designed, with the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) largely focused on mitigating road dust rather than industrial, vehicular, and biomass emissions -- the source of PM 2.5 -- that are the leading causes of mortality.

To make matters worse, in the last five years, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has left more than 75 percent of the Environment Protection Charge (EPC) and Environmental Compensation (EC) funds unspent, he claimed, adding that in total Rs 665.75 crores have been left unutilised.

On 29th July 2024, he said, upon being asked a question about the Lancet study, the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change made the "shocking" claim in Rajya Sabha that there was "no conclusive data" to directly correlate air pollution and deaths.

He further claimed that in August 2024, a study by the Mumbai-based International Institute of Population Sciences used government data from the National Family and Health Survey (NFHS V) to unravel the worst kept secret in India: that air pollution is costing thousands of Indians their lives and health.

"In districts where air pollution exceeds National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), there is a 13 percent increase in premature mortality for adults and around 100 percent increase in mortality for children," he also claimed.

"This Government's Modus Operandi is to deny that there is a real air pollution-linked mortality problem, underfund programmes targeted at mitigating pollution, fail to utilise the resources that it allocates, and misuse the funds that do get spent," Ramesh said.

The Congress leader spelt out some steps the government must take moving forward.

"The first step must be to acknowledge the public health crisis linked to air pollution across wide swathes of India. Consequently, given this crisis, we must revisit and totally revamp both the Air Pollution (Control and Prevention) Act of 1981 and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) put into effect in November 2009. As per the NAAQS, the permissible concentration of fine particulate matter is 60 µg/m3 for a 24-hour period, and 40 µg/m3 annually - versus the guidelines of less than 15 µg/m3 for a 24-hour period and 5 µg/m3 annually set by the WHO," he said.

Ramesh suggested the government must drastically increase the funds made available under the NCAP.

The current budget, inclusive of NCAP funding and the 15th Finance Commission's grants, is about Rs 10,500 crores, spread across 131 cities, he said.

"Our cities need at least 10-20 times more funding - NCAP must be made a Rs 25,000 crore programme.

"The NCAP must adopt measurement of PM 2.5 levels as the yardstick for performance. NCAP must reorient its focus to key sources of emissions - burning of solid fuels, vehicular emissions, and industrial emissions," he said.

The former environment minister also suggested that the NCAP must adopt a regional/airshed approach for air quality control, municipal and state authorities must have the governance architecture and resources required to collaborate across jurisdictions.

The NCAP must be given legal backing, an enforcement mechanism, and serious data monitoring capacity for every Indian city, beyond the current focus only on "non-attainment" cities, he said.

Ramesh also said that Air pollution norms for coal power plants must be enforced immediately and all power plants must install a Fluoride Gas Desulfurizer (FGD) by the end of 2025.

"The National Green Tribunal's independence must be restored, and the anti-people environmental law amendments of the last 10 years must be rolled back," he said.