India is the biggest culprit in the world when it comes to taking steps to check air pollution, and the report released by the State of Global Air 2017 in Boston earlier this week confirms our worst fears. The inference clearly is that the deaths caused by the fouling of air has galloped at a much faster rate in India than in China, itself at the very top of world pollution charts bar India. Presumably a similar trend will be discernible in respect of deteriorating health parameters.
The report claims that half of the world’s 4.2 million premature deaths due to air pollution were recorded in India and China. While the early deaths in respect of PM2.5 — very fine particulate matter caused by dust, which lodges easily into the lungs — rose by 17.22 per cent in China since 1990, the increase for India was as high as 48 per cent. Also, 2.54 lakh deaths occurred in 2015 on account of exposure to ozone, which can lead to chronic lung disease.
The purveyors of official data may choose to live in denial and nitpick about the quality of the survey and the data analysis of the Health Effects Institute, but that is cold comfort for the dying. When it comes to taking steps to check smoke from different sources, and dust flying around, much of what India has done may be summed up as hot air. Lobbies prevent placing effective curbs on different industries and forcing them to adopt ameliorative practices.
