Why is air quality worsening across India? Experts debate

India Today

In this episode of News Today, the focus is on the worsening air quality across India and the lack of political will to address the crisis.

Transcript

00:00I want to widen this debate and put some big questions now and get in more guests who've done

00:05a lot of work on the ground. What is the real reason for the worsening air quality across India?

00:11What impact is this worsening air pollution having on citizens' lives, especially the health factor?

00:17What is the solution to India's air emergency? Can centre and state governments escape responsibility

00:23and can they work together for once, for God's sake? And will air pollution ever become a major

00:28political issue in India? Joining me now is Vimlendu Jha. He's been working on the environment

00:34for years. Anumita Roy Choudhury, Executive Director of the Centre for Science and Environment,

00:39joins me. Pawan Mulukkutla is Executive Program Director, Integrated Transport Clean Air and Hydrogen

00:48WRI India. Dr. Vivek Nangya is VC and Head Pulmology at Max Healthcare, one of the leading

00:55pulmonologists in the country. So I appreciate all of you joining us. Let's turn question

01:00by question. And I want to ask you all this. Why are our cities, Vimlendu Jha, so polluted?

01:06When I look at the numbers, and I'm going to put all those numbers, the worst polluted cities,

01:11some of them are in India, Noida, Greater Noida, Delhi, Manesar, Ghaziabad. But we are seeing

01:16this now increasing pollution levels across the country. Why?

01:19So, Radeep, I'm today, I'm actually in Varanasi, and the government monitors are showing me 197,

01:28and the private monitors are showing me 356, or, and, you know, in one hour, it actually turned

01:34to 376. The entire area or entire country, by the way, 90% of India's air is poor, very poor,

01:43and NCR, of course, gets into severe and severe plus category, you know, in these three, four

01:50months. One of the reasons why we are one of the most polluted countries of the world,

01:54or most polluted cities of the world actually are the list that you actually make of 100 most

01:59polluted cities of the world. We are, you know, almost like 75% of those cities belong to our

02:06country, is because we do not, is because we do not prioritize, we've actually prioritized

02:12our development so much, we haven't really looked at urban environment, or for that matter,

02:17rural environment, there's no, not even measurement. We don't even measure what rural India's AQI index

02:24is. And therefore, we, you know, from, from industrialization to urbanization, to really looking

02:31at our transport regime, we haven't prioritized public health as, as number one issue. We've only

02:37selectively looked at development parameters, and GDP parameters as measuring the progress of a

02:44country. And we don't even relate to the fact that, imagine if there's a sick country, and there's a rich

02:50country, these two can't go hand in hand. You can't have a rich nation, second most rich nation of the

02:56world, or third top, or whatever, 5 trillion, or 10 trillion. And then if every second child

03:02actually has a stunted lung growth, what kind of a nation are we actually building?

03:06I'm going to come to the health risk. Lack of political will. You're saying lack of political

03:10will, we've never prioritized it. I'll come to the, the impact on health in a moment. But Anumita,

03:15the first big question I pose, why? Is it, do we lay the blame solely on governments and say that

03:22they've been unaccountable, they've not prioritized it, there's no political will out there?

03:26Is that the sole reason, in your view, why this problem gets worse by the year?

03:31It's very important to understand that why, and it's very clear. Now the whole development

03:36trajectory right now, and the urban growth that is happening, one clearly because of the energy mix

03:43that is in our industry, in households, and in the transport sector. So we are urbanizing, we are

03:50motorizing, we are industrializing, when the quality of the fuel that we are using, the technology

03:55level of emission controls that we are applying are very, we are behind, we are lagging behind.

04:01The technology ladder, we are really far behind. And we are not quickly catching up with the best

04:08that is clean and going to give us the zero emission transition. That's one. Second, and in this,

04:15I would really like to say that while the industrial energy and the transport energy certainly requires

04:21very quick transition. But the biggest challenge in India today is the household energy, where you still

04:27have large number of poor households with no access to clean fuel, still burning solid fuels for cooking,

04:34for heating. And that's huge amount of pollution, which is an equity issue that's fouling up the health

04:40and also our environment. The second reason is the lack of circularity when we are growing

04:46as consumers in cities. We are generating huge amount of waste today, but with no infrastructure

04:52to recover that waste, to segregate waste, and then recover resource out of that waste. So the waste that

05:00gets dumped, we burn that all the time. And the third is the whole mobility crisis. So we are

05:07urbanizing, growing, and we are, and therefore the need to travel is growing, but then there is no

05:12sustainable options for us. So basically the government is telling us that you self-organize

05:20your own mobility. You buy your car, you buy your two-wheeler, and I'm not going to invest in the

05:26public transport that you require. And then the fourth is the whole construction boom, right?

05:31The, what Adia was saying about in Mumbai, that everywhere, the whole construction boom

05:36that has taken off, making huge demand on material and mining. So just understand the complexity.

05:44It is just the development trajectory. And therefore the government who had to set the terms of that

05:49growth with the clean. That's how it happened.

05:54Okay. So it seems at the end of the day, it's coming to the door of the government.

05:58Uh, Pawan Mulukutla, do you agree with that? Is that, is it solely to be left at the door of,

06:06of the government? Is it that there hasn't been enough awareness all these years? Suddenly now,

06:11at least there is a conversation about it, which was not there for, for, for several years,

06:16to relate purely at the door of the environment ministry for their inability to frame, let's say,

06:21a, uh, a comprehensive policy, uh, for mobility, for example, work with transport, uh, uh, across

06:30the country. Is that the problem or is it that just, there isn't enough awareness?

06:36I think Rajdeep, it's both, right? We solely can't, um, say that it's only government because

06:42I totally agree. We need very strong regulations. We need very strong norms and we have very poor

06:49execution strategy in place, but I think making people part of this, you know, other day I was

06:54taking a taxi in Delhi and, you know, I was just chatting with this driver and sir, you know,

07:01even the awareness there is so lacking that, you know, we really need to make this people as part of

07:11this campaign, this moment, because we are talking about growth, but how do we achieve the growth as

07:17a green growth? You know, totally echoing what Anumita was saying, right? We need to look sector by

07:22sector. We are aware that what's happening in emission by construction, in transport, in industry,

07:28in household, but where is the action and the action? Who takes the action? You know, the courts,

07:33for example, we've seen the courts, for example, not being many believe take one step forward and

07:39then take one step back. We've had it with green crackers this year. Now, when I spoke to the former

07:44chief justice of India, he said, look, that's the, we can pass an order. Execution has to be with

07:51governments. We, we need the law enforcement agencies to ensure that our orders are complied with.

07:57Look at coastal regulations. You come to Goa now. Coastal regulations have been violated

08:02in several parts of this country. So is it about the failure to execute the orders that may be set

08:09in place that on paper, everything is in place, but the execution is missing?

08:15No, absolutely, Rajiv. I think we need very strong execution strategy. We need coordinated action

08:21between different departments. I think there has to be a incentive and penalties for department

08:27officers because this is, cannot be just left. We are talking a situation of emergency

08:31and we have to work at a war footing level. This can't be that simply said that, okay, let's do,

08:37let it happen and we'll take action. I think we need accountability, but we also need to create

08:42buy-in with citizens because if you don't make citizens and people part of this movement, I think

08:47we are going to lose this effort because you talk about efficiency standards. Then there is a

08:53resistance saying that, okay, we still want to use vehicles with better fuel efficiency. So we

08:58really need to ensure that we create campaigns around people. We really ensure that there's

09:04strong regulations, but the enforcement has to be increased.

09:07I'm going to come to solutions in a moment. I'm going to also go to Dr. Nangia in a moment

09:11because I want him to, you know, we almost frighten our audiences into believing what impact does foul

09:17air have on our lives. But Vimlendu, you raised your hand very quickly on this why factor. Let's

09:21settle it once and for all. So why are we talking about with regard to, you know, citizenry and others,

09:30we need to understand one thing, that we can't have private solution to public problems. At the end

09:36of the day, when we know that almost 50% or 40 to 50% of ambient air quality or ambient air pollution

09:45of Delhi is because of mobility sector, which CSE's report itself said, I think perhaps last year or

09:52something, then you and I can't buy a DTC bus. If, you know, 15, you know, power plants in 300 square

10:00kilometer radius don't follow the sulfur dioxide emission guidelines, then you and I can't do it.

10:06So we need to understand one thing, that rather than putting it on citizenry and citizenship,

10:11we need to ask those tough questions of people who we elect to be our custodian, custodian of our air.

10:18So why is our air bad? Rather than looking at many other factors, we need to look at the custodians

10:24of our air, our irresponsible politicians who don't give any damn about our health and linking

10:32environment, not just as a romance and a nuxil issue, rather a public health issue. Because imagine,

10:40and I'm sure Dr. Saab will talk about it. So we need to, that's where I don't think we should

10:45Okay, I take your point. I take your point. Let's, you know, there is only so much that

10:50citizens can do. Ultimately, the buck must stop with those whom we elect. Do they really

10:54care about the lives of citizens?

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