The Congress on Sunday criticized the Modi government for its handling of the deteriorating air quality in India and demanded that it must drastically increase the funds for the anti-pollution measures being proposed under the National Clean Air Program (NCAP).
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said there are clear steps the government must take moving forward, and the first must be to acknowledge the public “health crisis” associated with air pollution across wide swathes of India.
“Among the lesser-known tragedies of the non-biological PM’s reign is the rapidly deteriorating air quality nationally and the inattentiveness and policy chaos that has characterised the Government’s response to it,” Ramesh said in a statement.
To make his point, the former environment minister cited various recent studies that have highlighted the deteriorating air quality across the States in the Country.
“Aap chronology samajhiye: In early July, a study published in the prestigious Lancet journal showed that 7.2% of all deaths in India are associated with air pollution - about 34,000 deaths each year in just 10 cities,” he said.
In mid-July, a study by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that the government’s pollution control interventions are poorly designed, with the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) largely focused on mitigating road dust rather than industrial, vehicular, and biomass emissions -- the source of PM 2.5 -- that are the leading causes of mortality, Ramesh said.
To make matters worse, in the past five years, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has left more than 75 per cent of the Environment Protection Charge (EPC) and Environmental Compensation (EC) funds unspent, he said, claiming that in total Rs 665.75 crores have been left unutilised.
“On July 29, 2024, upon being asked a question about the Lancet study, the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change made the shocking claim in the Rajya Sabha that there was ‘no conclusive data’ to directly correlate air pollution and deaths,” he pointed out.
In districts where air pollution exceeds National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), there is a 13 per cent increase in premature mortality for adults and around 100 per cent increase in mortality for children, he said.
Ramesh called for a substantial boost in financial resources allocated to the NCAP. “Our cities need at least 10-20 times more funding - NCAP must be made a Rs. 25,000 crore programme. NCAP must adopt measurement of PM 2.5 levels as the yardstick for performance NCAP must reorient its focus to key sources of emissions – burning of solid fuels, vehicular emissions, and industrial emissions,” he said.
