Pollution spirals out of control as government sleeps at the wheel

India's air is among the most polluted in the world and the government's inaction is leaving many people, particularly infants, vulnerable

As the iconic India Gate disappeared behind a curtain of thick, toxic haze once again this week, the Central government finally moved beyond advising people to eat carrots and listen to music to deal with air pollution.

As Delhi battled with alarming levels of pollution in November last year, Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare had tweeted “Carrots also help against other pollution-related harm to health.” Prakash Javadekar, the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate change had shared a music composition and said “Start your day with music.”

Severely criticised by the Supreme Court for its nonchalance this time around, the Centre has formed a new agency and given it enough legal and administrative teeth to clean up the air in the National Capital Region.

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Even though rising air pollution afflicts more than 100 Indian cities, most of them from the north, Delhi-NCR is the most visible face of the recurring menace.

Come winter, Delhi and the satellite cities of Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad are enveloped by smog from burning stubble in Punjab and Haryana, with a generous contribution of pollutants from the capital itself: industrial and vehicular emissions, along with dust from construction debris.

The rise in pollution has also become a prompt for politicians to trade barbs and make big-ticket announcements, promising a cleaner future. But as winter recedes and the smog dissipates, the announcements are forgotten as well.

Last year, the Union Environment Ministry promised to cover up all the open spaces in the Delhi-NCR region — a key source of dust pollution. The plan was either to pave or green such open areas by August 2020. A year later, nothing has changed.

In January 2019, the Centre launched the National Clean Air Programme, with the aim of bringing down air pollution level by 20-30% in 102 cities that need urgent action, within a span of five years. Almost two years later, there is barely any action on that front, while the number of cities in need of help has gone up to 122.

Recently, the National Green Tribunal rapped the ministry for stating that it could not improve air quality beyond 30%.

“Right to clean air stands recognised as part of the right to life and failure to address air pollution is a denial of the right to life,” the NGT stated.

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But does anybody care?

For the last three years, the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) has asked power distribution companies to ensure uninterrupted power supply to high-rise apartments and commercial complexes in Delhi-NCR, to reduce the use of diesel generators.

However, compliance remains a far cry. Even this year, the EPCA had to exempt 19 complexes that are solely dependent on generators.

The government’s inaction comes at a huge cost to public health.

A study published in The Lancet in October puts air pollution as the leading risk factor for early death in India in 2019 (contributing to an estimated 16.7 lakhs deaths), ahead of high blood pressure, tobacco use and a poor diet.

The latest ‘State of Global Air Report’ came to a similar conclusion, putting air pollution as the fourth leading risk factor for early death.

India tops the world in a population exposed to PM 2.5 pollutants and has seen the proportion of total deaths attributable to air pollution surge over the past decade, surpassing even China. However, the communist country is ahead of India in terms of the absolute number.

Over the last several decades, mounting evidence indicates the risks that breathing polluted air poses to our health.

A group of Indian public health researchers from the Centre for Chronic Disease Control and Public Health Foundation of India, in collaboration with the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, studied 5,342 individuals from different parts of Delhi, for seven years, to gauge the impact of the air pollution on their blood pressure level.

They found that both short and long-term exposure to air pollution contributed to higher blood pressure and increased risk of hypertension.

“Even after adjusting other risk factors like diet, alcohol intake, body weight and diabetes, the study shows PM 2.5 has a direct relation in altering the blood pressure level and causing hypertension. It establishes a cause-and-effect relationship in the Indian context. While the risk is the maximum for those who are obese, it is significant even for non-obese population,” D Prabhakaran, executive director, Centre for Chronic Disease Control told DH.

Children at risk

Children are even more vulnerable. More than one lakh Indian children below the age of five years are killed by air pollution every year, making us the worst nation in the world for children to breathe.

World Health Organisation estimates in 2016 indicated that nearly six lakh children died from acute lower respiratory tract infections caused by polluted air; a sixth of them were Indians.

In 2019, air pollution contributed to five lakh deaths of infants in the first month of their lives around the globe. In India, such neonatal deaths range from 6,000 to 9,000 for every 1,00,000 births. Previous studies have also shown that clean air would add nearly two more years of life to every Indian. “Notwithstanding the steps that it had taken in the past, Delhi still needs to reduce its air pollution by 60% in order to provide clean air to its citizens,” explained Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director at the Centre for Science and Environment.

The spike in winter pollution, Roychowdhury explained, would never come down unless multiple air pollution issues in Delhi NCR are addressed in a systemic manner throughout the year.

For instance, while Delhi had banned coal-fired power plants, there are still 11 such power plants operating inside the NCR. The Haryana government needs to answer why it grants completion certificate and occupancy certificate to buildings without an electricity connection.

The absence of public transport also presents a huge gap in many cities. The Covid-19 pandemic has further narrowed down the choice as people prefer to avoid public transport.

“With the fear of the (Covid-19) virus, people are jumping into private transport — vehicle sales are defying all economic slowdown indicators. This rush of traffic is a key cause of air pollution. Dust exacerbates the problem, but vehicles create it,” said environmentalist Sunita Narain who heads the Centre for Science and Environment and a member of the EPCA.

The task cut out for the new Commission is to clean up the Augean stable, which needs a Herculean effort. It’s a million-dollar question how much they would be able to achieve before the next Deepavali.