Pollution kills 8 lakh in India every year: Report

A report prepared by The Energy and Resources Institute revealed that 800,000 people died in India every year because of environmental factors, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Nov 21, 2009, 01:02:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

“Our cities are the dirtiest of the world. If there is a Nobel Prize for dirt and filth, India will win it,” Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Friday.

Ramesh was speaking during the release of a report, which said that 800,000 people died in India every year because of environmental factors.

Things could improve, the minister said, once Parliament approved the National Green Tribunal Bill in the winter session. The report, prepared by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), dwells on what India will look like in 2047, 100 years after Independence.

Finance Commission Chairman Vijay Kelkar suggested a way of building environment assets for the nation — selling half of the country’s public sector undertakings to raise Rs 90,000 crore.

“The private sector has (made unnecessary) many PSUs now,” he said.

The report estimates the 8 lakh people die because of pollution of air, water and land, and the cost of such deaths is Rs 2,00,000 crore (Rs 2,000 billion).

The cost of environment degradation is 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), which in 2009-10 is Rs 46,00,000 crore ($1 trillion). GDP is the value of goods and services produced in a country in a year.

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.