After a study claimed that India's premature deaths due to air pollution nearly equalled that of China, a green body today said the "scary" scenario left no room for "denial" and asked the Centre to implement a nationwide strategy to tackle it.
"India cannot afford to remain complacent or on denial any more. With so many people dying early or falling ill and losing productive years due to particulate and ozone pollution, it is a state of health emergency.
"This demands nationwide intervention to ensure stringent mitigation and a road map to meet clean air standards," Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director -Research and Advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said.
The 'State of Global Air 2017' report said that India and China accounted for more than half of the world's premature deaths due to air pollution and India's lives lost to the tiny particulate matter was "approaching" China's numbers.
It said that among the 10 most populous countries and the European Union (EU), Bangladesh and India had the highest exposure to PM2.5, the "steepest" rise since 2010, while globally, there was 60 per cent rise in ozone attributable deaths, with a striking 67 per cent of this increase occurring in India.
CSE's analysis of the report stated that the number of premature deaths due to PM2.5 in India was the second highest in the world and that "it has nearly equalled China's 'dubious' record."
"The new scary results leave no room for diffidence and denial of the problem anymore," it said while asserting that as the Gross External Damage (GBD) analysis becomes an annual tracker of change, it is "possible for the world and India to know the trend in emerging health risk from air pollution."
"The Environment Ministry needs to implement nationwide strategy to control both particulate and gaseous pollutants to meet clean air standards," Roychowdhury said.
The NGO also claimed that the rate of increase in early deaths in India was quite scary.
While early deaths related to PM2.5 in China have increased by 17.22 per cent since 1990, in India these have increased by 48 per cent. Similarly, while early deaths due to ozone in China have stabilised since 1990, in India these have jumped by 148 per cent, it said.
The Centre for Science and Environment said that
according to the report, not only the absolute numbers of early deaths but even the rate of their increase, was higher in India than China.
"India has also recorded a much faster increase in ozone-related deaths since 1990 than China - on an average, the increase ranges at 20 per cent in India as opposed to 0.50 per cent in China.
"In 1990, ozone deaths in India were far less than in China. But now India has surpassed China, where ozone-related deaths have remained more or less stable. In South Asia, ozone deaths in India are 13 times higher than in Bangladesh and 21 times higher than in Pakistan," CSE said.
The report had stated that increasing exposure and a growing and ageing population have meant that India rivalled China for the highest air pollution health burdens in the world, with both countries facing some 1.1 million early deaths due to air pollution in 2015.
While 11,08,100 deaths were attributed to PM 2.5 exposure in China in 2015, in India, it was 10,90,400, it added.
