Controlling the poor air problem requires knowing it well. It requires factoring in environmental conditions and the load from different emitting sources. (Express file photo by Gajendra Yadav)
Dec 15, 2024 17:07 IST First published on: Dec 15, 2024 at 17:07 IST
A report published in the Lancet, last week, points out that no one in India lives in an area where the yearly average pollution levels are below the WHO norms. The report’s conclusion is somewhat along expected lines. India’s air quality standards are not up to that mandated by the global health organisation. The Lancet Report underlines an even graver concern. More than 80 per cent of the Indian population lives in areas where the air quality does not even meet the country’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5 — much higher than the WHO’s recommendation of 5µg/m³. The latest Lancet study’s estimates of deaths due to air pollution is also higher than that of the Global Burden of Disease.
The report came barely a week after rapidly deteriorating air quality forced schools in the national capital to ask students to take online classes. But it has also been apparent now that pollution is not just a problem of the country’s megacities. Poor has historically been one of the flip sides of development in most parts of the world. Solutions are not always easy – the US and UK, for instance, took decades to clean up the air.
Get basics right
The trouble is that India has yet to get a lot of fundamental rights. Controlling the poor air problem requires knowing it well. It requires factoring in environmental conditions and the load from different emitting sources. While there are studies to understand the nature and dynamics of the toxic air enveloping metros, pollution in most other parts of the country is an under-researched area. The country’s premier air quality monitoring body, the Central Pollution Control Board, recommends at least four stations to assess particulate matter levels in a city. But the agency’s data shows that more than 70 per cent of urban centres in the country have only monitoring station. The CPCB’s requirement estimate is, in fact, a conservative one. A city covering 400 square kilometres would require at least 25 stations. India operates barely 40 per cent of this capacity. And, most of rural India is outside the monitoring network. That’s why pollution remains a poorly understood phenomenon outside the metros.
A growing body of scholarship has also shown that several state pollution monitoring authorities lack the expertise to tackle pollution. The technical posts in pollution watchdogs have a perennial vacancy problem. The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 198 stipulates that state pollution control boards should have at least two members with special knowledge or practical experience in air quality management. However, this has historically not been the case in several pollution monitoring boards in the country. Moreover, survey after survey shows that the country’s municipalities do not understand the gravity of the problem.
Regions, not cities
On one hand, most of India does not have the know-how to fight pollution. And, on the other hand, the country’s clean air programmes continue to ignore state-of-the-art solutions which underline targeting regions, and not cities or states. That’s why despite a bevy of programmes and agencies, India has made little headway in bending the pollution curve.
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It might be too much to expect a drastic change in 2025. But some things can be done at the earliest. A country that claims to be on the course to becoming a developed country should do better in monitoring air quality and in equipping control stations with experts The least that the country’s policymakers can do is acknowledge the problem is not only in the metros, identify what our cities, towns and villages lack and make sure that these facilities are provided at the earliest.
A Viksit Bharat cannot be built with people choking on poor air.
Till next time
Take care,
Kaushik
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