Fighting pollution must be a concerted effort by every citizen. Otherwise, it shall remain a matter of academic and media discourse
This is a classic example of all talk and no work. Every year around this time, we hear lot of noise about smog and pollution. Suddenly the aura of Delhi gets diminished and is portrayed as one of the worst cities to live in. Government agencies, doctors, environmentalists, NGOs, activists and a host of other players, including many foreign universities, suddenly get vocal and bring to the fore myriad of troubles that plague India’s capital and her surrounding regions.
Yes, the problems abound — and there is a funny repetition of the pattern every year — what’s baffling is that we don’t hear or see much by way of action. And who is to blame for this? Many would like to put the onus on the Government. However, the fact is that this is a massive challenge and requires concerted and sustained intervention by each one of us. Else, it shall remain only a matter of academic and media discourse and will lead us into a smoke of perennially lingering threats.
This is why the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) developed by the University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman Professor in Economics Michael Greenstone and his team at Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) calculates the effect of air quality on life expectancy. And according to this Index, each one of us living in Delhi could be sacrificing 10 years of our lives to the apathy of the Government and other stakeholders. “The AQLI is an index that translates particulate air pollution into its impact on life expectancy. In Delhi, pollution concentration in 2016 averaged 113 microgram per cubic metre. Based on the research, life expectancy would be more than 10 years longer for people of Delhi of the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards had been met,” said Ken Lee, Executive Director of EPIC India. WHO prescribes the safe limit of annual mean PM 2.5 to 10 micrograms per cubic metre.
For India, the limit was raised to 40 micrograms per cubic metre. However, the PM 2.5 concentration (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres) in Delhi was 114 micrograms per cubic metre in 2016, which is 1.6 times more than 70 micrograms per cubic metre in 1998, the study said. On November 22 morning, the PM2.5 levels were at an alarming 261 as per aqicn.org, a website where you could check the live levels.
Little surprise the EPIC report found Delhi to be among 50 most polluted areas of the country. India, on the other hand, stands as the world’s second most polluted country, after Nepal. Globally, particulate pollution reduces average life expectancy by about 1.8 years. The study highlighted, “The impact of particulate pollution on life expectancy is comparable to that of smoking, twice that of alcohol and drug use, three times that of unsafe water, five times that of HIV/AIDS, and more than 25 times that of conflict and terrorism.” The study pointed out that over the past two decades, the concentration of fine particulates increased by 69 per cent on an average across India, reducing the life expectancy of a typical Indian citizen by 4.3 years compared to 2.2 years in 1998. All this is scary. What have we done to ward off these present dangers?
On November 14, the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) wrote to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) asking them to implement either the odd-even scheme or impose complete ban on non-CNG private vehicles. CPCB in turn said that this was to be deliberated by EPCA, which was a larger body, even as per protocol, the latter can only notify those anti-pollution measures which are recommended by the former. So far, no action is seen on this. Earlier this week, we also heard about plans to induce artificial rain over Delhi to wash away toxic pollutants. It was reported that scientists from IIT Kanpur, depending on the conditions, would do seeding of silver iodide and other chemical substances.
Intriguingly, talks on cloud seeding have been under way for many decades but we have not been able to operationalise it as yet. The Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) has been conducting cloud-seeding experiments in Maharashtra. One hopes we see it happening as it will bolster the confidence of citizens. On their part, citizens, too, can take some initiatives including volunteering not to use private vehicles. The tasks of the authorities, meanwhile, are clearly cut out. Unprecedented in-migration, rise in private and commercial vehicles, growing construction and an over-stressed public transport system are few areas that are intricately linked with rising pollution in Delhi and the National Capital Region. The clock is ticking and there is never a better time to take tough measures than now.
(The writer is a strategic communications professional)
