Air pollution emerging as biggest cause of deaths in India

India is virtually sitting on air pollution time-bomb with deaths related to this environmental hazard increasing six-fold in the last decade and it emerging as one of the biggest causes for deaths in 2010, country specific data on Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) report released on Wednesday said.

Updated on: Feb 13, 2013, 20:55:36 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

India is virtually sitting on air pollution time-bomb with deaths related to this environmental hazard increasing six-fold in the last decade and it emerging as one of the biggest causes for deaths in 2010, country specific data on Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) report released on Wednesday said.

The Washington based Health Effects Institute's detailed analysis for India showed that a million people each died because of indoor air pollution and direct and indirect tobacco smoking and another 620,000 people because of outdoor air pollution in 2010, a six time increase since 2000.

"The situation is grave," described Aaron Cohen, who headed the expert group on air pollution for the study, adding that air pollution caused 20 % of lung cancer and 6% of high blood pressure deaths in India.

Indoor pollution, which normally misses attention of policy-makers, was the biggest cause of disease burden by causing 27 of the air pollution load.

The average household particulate matter pollution in India was 350 micro gram per cubic meter of air, more than ten times the indoor air quality guideline of the United States Environment Protection Agency, indicating that homes in rural India are worse that outdoors.

India does not have any standard for indoor air pollution like many western countries.

"Around one million lives, especially of women, can be saved every year in India, if all solid fuels used for cooking in rural India is replaced with LPG," said Kalpana Balakrishnan, director of health ministry's Centre for Advanced Research on Environmental Health and a contributor to the GBD study.

Equally distressing is the rising particulate matter outdoor air pollution, which has been ranked as fifth biggest cause of deaths in India, lower than China and higher than other developing countries such as Brazil and South Africa.

A ground proofing by Delhi based NGO Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released at a discussion on killer pollution said that air quality of only two Kerala cities -- Malapuram and Pathanamthitta -- of the 180 cities monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board in India was considered worth breathing.

CSE's Anumita Roy Choudhury said that since 2005 particulate matter -- a cause for most heart and lung diseases -- has increased rapidly across Indian cities.

"Around 78% of Indian cities monitored have air quality higher than the national standard as compared to 75% in 2005," she said.

Summing up the intensity of the debate, Balakrishnan said "one can buy water but not air".

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

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.