Over the last few months, there have been tangible efforts from all fronts to improve the deteriorating environmental conditions in India. A WHO report on Delhi’s severe air pollution levels and last year’s air quality level in Environmental Preference Index which ranked the nation at an abysmal 155 out of a total of 178 countries, highlighted the need to address the problem.
The WHO report puts Delhi among the worst polluted cities in the world (even worse than Beijing) and at the same time, 13 Indian cities found themselves in the world’s top 20. This year’s Social Progress Index (SPI) which measures and collates aspects of a nation’s development under 3 main categories – ‘basic human needs’, ‘basic foundations of well being’ and ‘opportunity’, suggests that India is relatively weak in the fields of indoor and outdoor air pollution as well as ecosystem sustainability.
To alleviate the nation’s debilitating environmental health, the active participation of citizens across the entire country is needed. Simple steps such as using public transport facilities whenever possible and avoiding the utilization of adulterated automobile fuel will help decrease particulate pollutant levels. Solid waste management is another burden, especially in urban areas.
Small actions like increasing the number of dustbins along roads, in offices and in residential areas, and lowering the usage of disposable plastic material will definitely go a long way to reduce garbage which most metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai are chock-a-bloc with. Even in rural areas, burning of crop waste and other biomass add a significant portion to the overall air pollution in the nation.
The government too has been involved in curbing environmental pollution nationally by announcing policies and programs such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Clean Ganga mission. Another noteworthy initiative is the Air Quality Index (AQI) which was launched this month by the Prime Minister himself. The AQI is available on the website and can also be accessed on mobile phones.
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It contains data about 10 prominent cities. Six pollutants – PM10, PM2.5, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, are monitored and the air quality levels are color coded into six bands denoting ‘Good’, ‘Satisfactory’, ‘Moderately polluted’, ‘Poor’, ‘Very Poor’, and ‘Severe’. Environmental protection is a problem not only in India, but in all other countries as well.
India is the 3rd highest emitter of greenhouse gas, just behind China and the US. It is essential that we proactively participate in reducing pollution and we need to think of it as a global problem and not just a single nation’s or a city’s concern.