Opinion Express View on pollution shortening Indian lives: A toll of air

Alarm bells on the country’s air quality have been ringing for at least two decades now. It’s well known that exposure to unhealthy amounts of particulate matter takes a toll on the lungs and hearts of a large section of people in the country. In recent years, epidemiological studies have linked poor air to increased vulnerability to various forms of cancer, cognitive disorders and stunted development in children. Last year, a Lancet study estimated that India lost 1.67 million people in 2019 to diseases caused by inhaling hazardous amounts of PM 2.5. Now an Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) prepared by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (UCEPI), reckons that pollution by these fine particles reduces the average Indian’s life expectancy by more than five years. The study’s conclusions for Delhi are even more dire — air pollution shaves off the lifespan of the capital’s residents by nearly 12 years. The AQLI, which co-related the lifespans of people in more than 200 countries with air quality, reveals that 77 of the worst performing districts are in India.

Most Indian cities today have clean air plans. The trouble, however, is that these plans continue with the failed approaches of the past, including an over-reliance on punitive measures, and do not adequately co-relate the environmental problem with the public health crisis. For nearly a decade, Delhi tried to deal with pollution only when it assumed emergency proportions. Even now, the capital has very little to address the structural problems that make 100 days of satisfactory air in a year a rarity. The city’s — and large parts of North India’s — geography does impose constraints, especially in winters when pollutants have no escape routes. Reducing the PM 2.5 footprint also requires bringing diverse sections of people — businesses, the middle and working classes, and a variety of professionals — on the same page, especially on re-engineering transportation plans and framing sustainable development strategies. Care needs to be taken so that livelihoods are not hit. Addressing these difficult challenges, however, requires unflinching political resolve. But the political class has never really taken ownership of the task of loosening pollution’s choke-hold, even when the judiciary has prodded or pulled up government agencies.

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According to last year’s Lancet study, the economic losses due to pollution-related deaths and morbidity in 2019 amounted to nearly $37 billion. A Dalberg paper in 2021 reckoned that this figure could go up to $95 billion. A country aspiring to be a $5 trillion economy can ill-afford to neglect people’s well-being. The concerns flagged by the University of Chicago study should not be papered over.