The Congress on Sunday criticised the government after a world air quality report ranked India as the world’s fifth most polluted country, and demanded that all “anti-people” environmental law amendments over the past 10 years be rolled back.
In a statement, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said the Swiss air quality technology company IQAIR has just released its 2024 World Air Quality Report which finds that India is the world’s fifth most polluted country.
The Rajya Sabha MP said in his statement that according to the report, India’s population-weighted average concentration of fine particulate matter is 50.6 µg/m3 which is 10 times the WHO’s annual guideline level of 5 µg/m3.
He claimed that according to the report, 74 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities are in India, and national capital New Delhi is the second-most polluted city in the world after Brynihat in Meghalaya.
“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,” he said in his statement.
Ramesh cited several studies in the past about air pollution-linked fatalities in the country. In early July 2024, he said, a study published in the prestigious Lancet journal showed that 7.2 percent of all deaths in India are associated with air pollution which comes about 34,000 deaths each year in just 10 cities.
The former environment minister said that around the same time, a study by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that the government’s interventions in pollution control 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.
To make matters worse, in the last five years, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has left more than 75 percent of the Environment Protection Charge (EPC) and Environmental Compensation (EC) funds unspent, he claimed, adding that in total `665.75 Crores have been left unutilised.
