14 of world's 15 most polluted cities in India: Why the north needs to wake up
At a time when Delhi dominates the pollution debate in the country, smaller towns are at greater risk.
Fourteen of the world’s 15 most polluted cities are in India, with Kanpur topping the list of 4,300 places, a World Health Organization (WHO) study has revealed.
The other cities are Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur. Beijing, once the most polluted city in the world, is not even among the top 20. Delhi has climbed down from fourth position last year to the sixth.
The report outlines some important points – breathing in India is injurious to health, at a time when Delhi dominates the pollution debate in the country, smaller towns are at greater risk, and north India’s air is significantly more poisonous than the south’s.
Pollution is shortening lifespans
The list is stark – top 15 spots among 4,000 cities brings home the magnitude of the problem. It gives important context to what several studies over the past few years have shown – air pollution is interfering with north Indian’s lives in multiple ways, from shortening lifespans, to paralysing train and flight services in the winter, to even yellowing the Taj Mahal.
The WHO report evaluates the concentration of PM 2.5 in the air of the cities studied, based on 2016 data.
PM, or particulate matter, is a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets suspended in the air. The smaller the particles, the more lethal they are, because they can be inhaled when we breathe. PM 2.5 particles are extremely fine, so small that the body’s defences, such as nostril hair, cannot stop them, and they enter our lungs and even the blood stream, causing respiratory complications and even cancer.
The report says: “WHO estimates that around seven million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system, causing diseases including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia,” the report said.
According to one study by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, air pollution shortens the average Indian life by around 3.4 years. The figure goes up in the Indo-Gangetic plain, with Delhi residents dying 6.3 years earlier, on an average.
“Air pollution threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalised people bear the brunt of the burden,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO.
Approach to the problem needs to change
The only time pollution dominates the national discourse in India is when Delhi goes under its annual smog blanket around Diwali. Yet, it’s the resultant issues– ban on firecrackers, tussle between states over stubble burning – that get more attention, rather than the poisoned air itself.
One estimate of the indifference people continue to have towards the problem is that though it affects millions of Indians, curbing air pollution has not been a major poll promise of any political party.
Delhi’s pollution comes into focus because it is the national capital, and actually has air quality monitoring units installed. Thus, even as Delhi takes out its masks, the rest of north India continues to wheeze and carry on, unbothered by a problem they don’t know exists.
The solutions tried – ban on construction, odd-even cars policy – show that even the authorities fail to understand that Delhi’s problem is linked to the Indo-Gangetic plain as a whole, and any solution to be effective has to focus beyond the NCR’s borders.
Why is north India disadvantaged
As the WHO report became public on Monday, social media quickly turned it into north-verses-south jingoism. Yet, the “south is more advanced and has more civic sense” argument is not enough to show why air quality in south Indian cities is significantly better than the north, geography has a lot to do with it.
Wind has a large role to play in determining air quality – pollutants cannot be blown away if the air is stagnant.
While south India has a long coastline and the sea breeze helps with air circulation, the Indo-Gangetic plain is not just landlocked, it is hemmed in by mountains. Thus, pollutants are blown into the plains from a variety of places, and then stay here.
A report in The Times of India quotes Dr Gufran Beig, the director and chief scientist of System Air quality Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), as saying: “In addition to local sources of pollution, Indo-Gangetic cities also get pollution from neighbouring regions and other parts of India, so as a result the pollution level becomes very high. During the summer, winds sweep towards the Indo-Gangetic plains through south India and from the north through the Himalayas, converging in the plains. This means the polluted air from south and central India and from the north and Nepal all converge in the plains.”
In the winter, meanwhile, "winds from the northeast and the west come in and temperatures drop, causing the air over the Indo-Gangetic plains to become very calm".
Even the terrible smog in Delhi in November last year was contributed to by a “multi-day dust storm” in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, according to a study by SAFAR and India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Also, north India is vulnerable to a phenomenon called temperate inversion, where the air closest to earth becomes colder than the layer above it, preventing pollutants from dissipating upwards.
Development versus environment
To these natural causes are added man-made problems – factories, coal power plants to produce electricity, biomass burning, use of unhealthy sources of fuel for cooking and other household activities.
Burning coal is a major cause of air pollution, and as India fights to increase electricity generation, the environment pays a steep price. According to an IndiaSpend report, India’s sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions (major pollutant) due to burning of coal – increased by 50 per cent between 2007 and 2017.
According to a government reply in the Lok Sabha in August 2017, the share of coal in electricity generation in India is about 72 per cent, and “has remained largely the same over the last three years”.
Biomass burning – farmers burning stubble, use of firewood for cooking, municipal workers burning leaves and litter – is essentially reliance on cheap, unscientific methods, which require major government involvement and investment to change.
In a developing economy like India, cheap electricity, more factories, quick and easy solutions to waste and stubble disposal, are all more desirable, convenient options for both the government and the people.
However, we are paying for this short-sightedness, with every breath we take.