Blame industry, not cars, for pollution

A new government study has broken the popular belief that vehicles are the major source of particulate matter air pollution. Instead, industrial emissions and road dust are the prominent causes, says environment ministry’s study. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 18, 2011, 02:02:02 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A new government study has broken the popular belief that vehicles are the major source of Particulate Matter (PM) air pollution. Instead, industrial emissions and road dust are the prominent causes, says environment ministry’s Source Appropriation Study in seven big cities of India.

Particulate matter was the fastest growing pollutant in most Indian cities but its sources were not known.

The only study of its type, first reported by HT in June 2010 and reviewed by an inter-ministerial group said that vehicles are the highest contributor to PM 10 (particulate matter of 10 micros or more) levels only in Bangalore. They were found to be third or fourth contributor in the remaining six cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Kanpur and Chennai.

“Despite the large fleet of vehicles in Delhi, the share is less due to presence of other significant sources such as power plants, road dust re-suspension,” the report vetted by air pollution experts in Europe and United States, said.

Vehicular contribution to PM pollution was only seven percent whereas road dust contributed about 50% to total PM 10, which was found to be highest in Delhi among the cities surveyed.

Road dust re-suspension is primarily because of undone payments, roadside eateries and construction activity without pollution control measures.

Industrial activity was found to be the highest contributor for PM 10 pollution, which triggers lung ailments, in Mumbai and Kanpur. Large industries were the cause in Mumbai whereas small-scale industries produce high particulate matter in Kanpur. Power plants within city boundary limits were the primary cause for industry contributing 22 % in Delhi.

The study also found that domestic use of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) was also a cause for particulate matter pollution. Including PM 2.5, a fine pollutant whose repeated exposure can trigger heart attacks.

Another startling revelation was that vehicles are not the major contributor to nitrogen oxide (NOX) pollution in Delhi and Mumbai. The fumes from diesel vehicles were considered the major source of rising levels of this gaseous pollutant in Delhi, where industries have been blamed for his high concentration.

However, the study found that in transport sector heavy-duty vehicles, especially those running on diesel, were the biggest contributor to pollution levels.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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