‘Air pollution deaths rose by over 70,000 in just five years’

pollution deaths in India from airway-choking particulate matter and ozone rose from 6.2 lakh in 2005 to more than 6.9 lakh in 2010, said the Environment ministry’s draft State of the Environment 2015 report that invites comments from stakeholders till May 30.

This flies in the face of statements made by former environment minister for state Anil Madhav Dave, who has also written an introductory note for the draft report, suggesting that foreign reports on air pollution deaths should not be trusted.

Despite his publically voiced mistrust of foreign-sourced estimates, the Environment ministry document quotes data on India from 2014 Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) on the India.

The report highlights the grim environmental health of the country. Among the key issues highlighted by the report are degradation in more than 96.40 million hectare (ha) of land (out of the total area of 328.7 million ha) and desertification of a quarter of the total land (82.64 million ha).

India aims at having 33% of its land under forests, but the figure stands at 21.34% currently. The protected area network in India covers just 5.07 %of its area.

The report also notes the increase in the number of threatened species indicating biodiversity loss.

The loss to the Indian economy from water resource depletion is pegged at 6% by 2050 if the country continues to manage its water the same way.

There were 3,260 highly polluting industrial units, as per most recent estimates, the report says, of which less than a third (929) have installed pollution abatement devices and even fewer (920) have real-time monitoring systems. Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) contribute about 70% of the industrial pollution in the country.

One of the bright spots is the manifold rise in the contribution of renewables to India’s energy mix from 3.7% to 14.2 % over a 7-year period.

It finds that levels of some of the most important air pollutants like PM, Sulphur Dioxide(SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone “routinely exceed national standards, especially in urban areas.”

“Besides the immense public health impacts of environmental pollution, there is considerable evidence that environmental pollution is impacting human productivity and economic growth,” the report concludes.