Industries, households, cars and trucks emit complex mixtures of air pollutants, many of which are harmful to health.
High Air Pollution in India Cuts Most Lives By 3 years
Few weeks back, most newspapers had stated that Mumbai has overtaken Delhi as India’s most polluted city. However, that was a temporary phenomenon caused by the remnants of a dust storm that originated in the Arabian Peninsula and crossed the Arabian Sea into Mumbai. For those couple of days, the US embassy’s air quality index (AQI) readings for Mumbai was higher than that of New Delhi.
There’s a perception that Mumbai is not dangerously polluted, compared to most cities in India, but the fact remains that pollution in most Indian cities are much higher compared to foreign cities.
In fact, the World Health Organisation (WHO) rates India’s air pollution among the worst in the world, and says that its adversely impacting the lifespans of its citizens, reducing most Indian lives by over three years.
Over half of India’s population live in areas where fine particulate matter pollution is above India’s standards for what is considered safe, said the study by economists from the University of Chicago, Harvard and Yale published in Economic & Political Weekly.
If India reverses this trend to meet its air standards, those 660 million people would gain about 3.2 years onto their lives, the study said. Put another way, compliance with Indian air quality standards would save 2.1 billion life years, it said.
“India’s focus is necessarily on growth. However, for too long, the conventional definition of growth has ignored the health consequences of air pollution,” said Michael Greenstone, an author of the study and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).
“This study demonstrates that air pollution retards growth by causing people to die prematurely. Other studies have also shown that air pollution reduces productivity at work, increases the incidence of sick days, and raises health care expenses that could be devoted to other goods.”
Isn’t the loss of more than two billion life years, a substantial price to pay for air pollution?
Polluted air, due to burning fossil fuels like coal at home, and due to emission from vehicles also increases mortality in children, as their breathing is faster and longer, because of which they take in more polluted air. Activists in several Indian cities are demanding a complete ban on explosion of firecrackers during Diwali, India’s biggest festival.
Pollution makes cycling more dangerous (than healthy) in Indian cities
Such is the pollution level in most Indian cities that cycling becomes more dangerous than healthy. Cycling for even 30 minutes outweighs the benefits of exercise altogether, according to new research.
Air pollution can make cycling in the open (beyond a certain time) harmful, according to a report in The Guardian, based on studies by Preventive Medicine and WHO. In India, cycling in cities like Gwalior & Allahabad is doubly dangerous than cycling in Delhi.
Time, beyond which cycling becomes more harmful than beneficial:
- Gwalior, Allahabad: 30 minutes
- Patna, Raipur: 45 minutes
- Delhi, Ludhiana, Kanpur: 60 minutes
- Khanna, Firozabad, Lucknow, Amritsar, Gobindgarh, Agra: 75 minutes
- Jodhpur, Dehradun, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Howrah, Faridabad, Dhanbad: 90 minutes
- Bhopal, Khurja, Rae Bareli: 105 minutes
- Kota, Udaipur, Alwar: 120 minutes
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