For a breath of fresh air

Yet another World Environment day has arrived with a lasting reminder that air pollution continues to remain a public health emergency. This demands massive scaling up of clean air action under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) to be able to meet the clean air targets across all regions.

Killer air has contributed to 6.7 million deaths globally of which 1.6 million deaths have occurred in India in 2019. According to the state of global air, 2020, India has one of the highest PM 2.5 exposures. Nearly everyone breathes air quality that defies WHO guidelines that are designed to provide a margin of safety.

India’s disease burden and vulnerability are further enhanced due to exposure to high levels of mixed pollutants and susceptibility of the vulnerable population including children, elderly and the poor with a range of underlying diseases. This is also leading to a huge loss of productive years that is knocking off economic gains.

The profile of pollution is also changing. While the tiny particles remain the biggest threat, other harmful gases including ozone and nitrogen oxides are also rising. While air quality is improving in some cities, it is worsening in others. Even smaller towns and rural hinterlands are in the grip of this toxic risk as the entire region beyond municipal boundaries is getting polluted.

Even though Delhi and the cities of northern India hog attention for their highly elevated pollution level, the health risk is uniformly spread across all regions of the country as most of the deaths and illness occur at a pollution level that is much lower than the northern India. There is no escape.

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