Small town146;s big mess

Big cities fall off the list of top polluters, edged out by Raipur, Jharia and Jalandhar

If you thought big cities were big polluters, the latest findings of the Central Pollution Control Board will show you otherwise. Chhattisgarh8217;s capital Raipur has been crowned the most polluting city of India. The highest amount of suspended particulate matter SPM, the biggest contributor to pollution in the country, is emitted most from the factories and vehicles in Raipur.

And following Raipur is neither Delhi nor Kolkata but the industrial towns of Jharia in Bihar and Jalandhar in Punjab. These findings have been discussed in 8216;The Leapfrog Factor8217;, a ten-year-long study on air pollution by the Centre for Science and Environment CSE. According to the study, the top ten pollution hotspots identified in 2004 are largely concentrated in Northern India, with a few scattered across the western and eastern parts of the country.

Since 2003, when the CPCB begin ranking cities according to their particulate matter, cities like Kanpur and Lucknow have consistently remained among the Top 10.

8216;8216;But what is worrying is that newer cities like Raipur have also begin acquiring a dubious status. There are many towns and cities that are not even part of the air-monitoring grid and the status of their air quality is not even known. Big cities, thought still very polluted, are no longer the dirtiest. This shows that every year, especially with the expansion of the monitoring network, newer cities and smaller towns, are scaling up as chart-busters,8217;8217; the study says.

8216;8216;The small cities are not being monitored at all according to the Euro norms for emission of pollutants. In big cities like Delhi and Kolkata, government is quick in acting because of the public and legal momentum generated but the situation is getting worse in small cities day by day. We do have national ambient air quality standards for all pollutants but sadly there is no national framework to enforce these standards,8217;8217; says Anumita Roychowdhury, associate director and co-ordinator of the Air Pollution team at the CSE.

8216;8216;The government has to observe the dynamics of small cities. With increase in the per-capita income and changing life-style, all small town residents want to buy cars and two-wheelers. Industries can still be relocated to other places like it happened in Delhi but one cannot put a tab on the pollution created by traffic, which is the main reason for increasing pollution in small cities,8217;8217; she adds.

According to the study, pollution caused by vehicular traffic poses a very complex challenge. 8216;8216;Because vehicle emissions take place in the breathing zone of people, they contribute significantly to human exposure. Since motor vehicles emit some of the deadliest carcinogenic compounds, the number of cars on Indian roads has to be controlled. Considering that they transport less people than a public transport, but create more pollution, the next action of the government should be to provide better public transport,8217;8217; says Roychowdhury.