Pollution challenge in Indian cities more severe today, says CSE

CSE's latest publication on air pollution finds Indian cities in the grip of an overwhelming mobility crisis -- congestion and pollution from personal cars
Greater number of small cities swamped by pollution -- list of 10 most polluted cities in India has no metros in it

New Delhi, April 19, 2006: Delhi would have been reeling under a pollution load of 38 per cent more particulates if the Supreme Court had not intervened to introduce cleaner fuels and emissions technology in the city (see graph). Delhi's air is cleaner today, but it is still not clean enough. What's worse, more and more Indian cities -- a number of which are small, non-metro -- are turning into smog-encased pollution hotspots.

These and other issues on vehicular air pollution were under discussion here today at the release of a book -- The Leapfrog Factor: Clearing the air in Asian cities -- published by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) (see note on the book). The book was released by Sheila Dikshit, chief minister of Delhi, herself one of the key architects of change in the capital.

Mobility management: the challenge of the future
Speaking at a Public Meeting following the release, Anumita Roychowdhury, associate director, CSE and head of CSE's Right to Clean Air campaign, said: "While Delhi has remained in the forefront in enforcing tighter emissions standards and fuel quality, it stands at serious risk of losing its gains to newer challenges. The most worrying trend in Delhi is that while the technology roadmap remains sluggish, the sheer numbers of vehicles are overpowering the change. Unbelievably, as much as 17 per cent of the cars in India run in Delhi alone. It has more cars than the total numbers of cars in the individual states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and West Bengal."

Congestion and pollution from these vehicles is threatening to destroy the quality of life in the city. This mobility crisis is building up not only in Delhi, but in all Indian cities because a large share of daily travel trips is being made by personal transport. A car caught in congestion can emit nearly four times more. Cars and two-wheelers take up nearly 90 per cent of the road space, carry lesser numbers of people and pollute excessively.

As a result, public transport -- which is key to leveraging change towards sustainable mobility -- is collapsing in most cities. Only eight of the 35 cities that have more than a million population have dedicated bus services; even these are under extreme pressure. Approximately 80 million trips need to be catered to daily in our metro cities, but the available rail and bus transport can cater to only 37 million.

Buses still meet nearly 61 per cent of the travel demand, though they occupy a mere 3 per cent of the total traffic. Yet city governments penalise public transport and tax bus transport higher than cars. In Delhi, the total road tax that a bus pays per vehicle kilometre is Rs 5.69, as opposed to the pittance of Rs 2.39 that a car pays. Governments spend more money in building flyovers than they do for improving public transport, ignoring the fact that for every 10 per cent increase in lane mile capacity, there is a 9 per cent increase in traffic.

Roychowdhury says that the public transport plans of the Delhi government, such as high-capacity bus systems, must be implemented urgently and all transport modes should be well integrated for easy access if we expect to see any turnaround.

Scenario in other Indian cities: grim
Some cities in India have seen a decline in their pollution levels. In fact, according to a World Bank study, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad have seen about 13,000 less premature deaths due to air pollution-related diseases. But this evidence of success in a few cities should not breed any sense of complacency: in fact, the daily exposure levels to air pollution in these cities have gone up.

Moreover, a much larger number of cities are in the grip of killer pollution today - as many as 57 per cent of the cities monitored in the country have critical PM10 levels (more than 1.5 times the standards). Newer and smaller cities are scaling the pollution peak and are more polluted than even the metros. India still does not have a legal framework to meet air quality standards.

New evidence confirms that the estimated health effects of air pollution in Indian and Asian cities are similar to those found in Western countries. But Roychowdhury points out that Indian and developing Asian cities are more at risk due to unique factors such as extremely high levels, risk of multiple pollutants going up together, and the impact of poverty. In fact, the growing air pollution menace is deadly for the urban poor in India, 50 to 60 per cent of who live in slums. Each year, two-third of the 0.8 million deaths and 4.6 million lost life years attributed to air pollution worldwide, occurs in developing Asian countries.

Leapfrog to better times
The only way out of the mess, says CSE, is to "reinvent the idea of mobility". Indian and Asian cities need to implement radical solutions within a short time-frame for long-term gains. They need to base themselves on public transport, and manage their mobility by restraining cars. They need to leapfrog to cleaner vehicle technologies and fuels to cut their exposure to toxic fumes. They need to introduce fuel economy standards to improve energy efficiency of vehicles. And they need to use fiscal incentives for propelling change.