3,000 people die in Delhi prematurely because of exposure to air pollution

At least 3,000 people in Delhi die every year prematurely because of exposure to high air pollution and around 55% of Delhites live in high exposure area, a yet to be released study has found.

Updated on: Feb 10, 2011, 22:21:08 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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At least 3,000 people in Delhi die every year prematurely because of exposure to high air pollution and around 55% of Delhites live in high exposure area, a yet to be released study has found.

The preliminary findings of the study done by US based Health Effects Institute and Delhi based The Energy Resources Institute were released at a seminar in Pune on January 20 and the final report is expected in first week of March.

The study said the respirable suspended particulate matter (PM 10) of 300 micro grams in cubic meter area (ug/m3) (average level in Delhi) increases the rate of premature deaths because of air pollution by 3%.

While impact of air pollution on health is widely recognized, the study for the first time present a figure of at least 3,000 deaths in the national capital every year due to ailments such as asthma, respiratory diseases, heart attacks and cancer triggered by air pollution. Every year, one lakh people die in Delhi.

"Using the Delhi results, risk of premature mortality would be approximately three percent higher due to air pollution," said the presentation made by institute's president Dr Dan Greenbaum.

The national standard is 100 ug/m3 and PM 10 in Delhi increases up to 800 ug/m3 during winter months. For every 10 ug/m3 increase in PM level over 300 ug/m3, there is 0.15% to 1.17 % increase in the death rate, the study said.

In an email response to HT, Greenbaum said: "The preliminary estimate for Delhi was based on generally accepted international methods…A more fine grained estimate with the aim of educating people about impact of air pollution will released in March."

The findings did not sound strange to Dr V K Vijayan, director of Patel Chest Institute, who had seen an increase in patients with ailments caused by increase in air pollution. "In high exposure areas air pollution can also cause death," he said.

The study had also said that 55% of Delhi's population living within 500 meters of two ring roads and 50 meters of major roads are exposed most to high air pollution in Delhi. "It is primarily because they are most vulnerable to inhale emissions from vehicles or other sources on road," said Anumita Roy Choudhury, associate director with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

An environment ministry study released in January had attributed roadside dust as major source of PM 10 pollution in Delhi but CSE on Tuesday said that if roadside dust is not considered, vehicles are major contributor to air pollution in Delh.

The study also found that Ozone, which causes inflammation in respiratory tract and problems in breathing, was rising in Delhi. Its primary cause was rise in nitrogen dioxide emissions, whose source is primarily from diesel vehicles.

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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