AIR POLLUTION IN DELHI

 The toxic haze in Delhi-poses a deadly health risk to its residents, -especially children, the elderly, and the sick. Particulate matter—PM2.5 and PM10—exceeds national and World Health Organization limits and is the primary cause of Delhi's high rate of cardiovascular disease. The city's toxic air also contains high levels of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and carbon-monoxide, increasing the risk of-strokes, heart attacks, and high blood pressure and exacerbating COVID-19 respiratory complications.

Elements-from-big-power-plants-and-factories, vehicles, and stubble burning all-contribute significantly to particulate-emissions in Delhi. Based on Bangkok, -Beijing, and Singapore's experiences, an ambitious but attainable-goal is to reduce air pollution by one-third by 2025, which, if-maintained, would result in a significant reduction in global warming, which, if maintained, could add two to three years to people's lives. The current effort aims to address all three sources, but successful implementation is required.

Between 2010 and 2019, the report summarised data-on air-pollution-exposures-and associated-health effects in-7,239 cities. South-Asia is responsible for-1,503 of these. The report-made-use of satellite imagery and ground measurements. The latter included-publicly available data from 3,787-PM2.5-air quality monitoring-stations in-63 countries-and-5,220 NO2 monitoring-stations in 58-countries. 

Using-data-from-2010 to-2019, the report discovered-that-global-patterns-of exposure to-the two key air pollutants-were-"strikingly different."

With 124 attributable deaths per 100,000 people, Beijing had the highest disease burden from a PM 2.5-related ailment.

With 106 deaths per 100,000-people, Delhi ranked sixth, and Kolkata ranked eighth, with 99. Five Chinese cities were among the top twenty. In 2019, PM2.5 levels averaged 34.6 g/m3, ranging from 0.1 g/m3 in Trabzon, Turkey, to 133 g/m3 in Jhusi, India.

In the same year, 86% of the over 7,000-cities investigated in the report exceeded the WHO's NO 2 guideline of 10 g/m3, affecting approximately 2.6 billion people.

"While PM2.5 pollution receives more attention in known hotspots around the world, less data for NO 2 at this global scale is available," the report notes.

Delhi-is working on three fronts at the same time: energy, transportation, and agriculture. East Asia provides valuable

New Delhi-is the world's-fourth most polluted-city (IQAir 2021). The problem of polluted air is not-limited to-Delhi , out-of-15 Indian cities,V10 have-the most-polluted air in the world.

It's encouraging to see Delhi's-pollution levels decreasing, which can be attributed to various initiatives implemented by the Delhi-government. Some of these-included a check on diesel vehicles, a ban on the combustion-of-biomass, and the conversion of diesel commercial vehicles to CNG.

The reduction in air-pollution is a source of relief and joy for the people and government of Delhi. However, a decrease in the city's pollution-rank does not guarantee safe air; if we look at the current level of pollution, the situation remains grim. 

The data-demonstrates that the city requires more stringent and effective measures to reduce air pollution levels to safe levels. According to the WHO's air quality guidelines, lowering particulate matter (PM10) -levels from 70 to-20 micrograms per cubic metre could reduce air pollution-related deaths by 15%. Not only does air pollution cause deaths, but it also causes a variety of major and minor health issues such as cardiovascular-disease, lung disease, cancer, nervous system disorders, and so on.

Air-pollution reduction is undoubtedly a difficult task. Air pollution in India is caused by both natural and man-made factors. Man-made-pollution sources include smoke from power plants and factories, the combustion of wood, biomass, and dung, motor vehicles, air and marine transportation, gases from weapons and rocketry tests, and many others. Natural sources of pollution include dust from bare land, smoke from forest fires, -vegetation, and so on. Manmade-pollutants are more-abundant and have more severe effects in both sources.

The-pollution levels in various Indian cities are so high that the government must immediately-implement stringent and serious-programmes. Looking at North-American and European countries, air quality has significantly improved since the 1990s. Indians can easily adopt a better methodology to reduce air pollution levels.

Mexico-City's initiative to control emissions was relatively successful. The government implemented air quality improvement programmes — PIICA and PROAIRE — in the 1990s, which included: 

1. A rotating one-weekday ban on private car use.

2. The ban was extended to every second day on days with high pollution.

3. Every six months, car owners must have their vehicles certified.

India should also adopt better-practices to reduce the Delhi’s-Pollution like:

• Better Farming Practices

• Cleaner Transport

• Closure of Coal Fired Plants.

• Certified Vehicles

The Delhi government has announced these key steps being taken to curb pollution in the city:

• At least 50% Delhi government staff would work from home. Private offices have also been advised to follow suit.

• Trucks not carrying essentials banned; only electric & CNG trucks are allowed in the city.

• Total500 private environment buses to begin in Delhi.

• Staggered market and office timings.

• Movement of BS-IV diesel cars banned.

• Movement of diesel-run heavy/medium goods vehicles in city banned; diesel LMVs in Delhi and bordering districts of NCR (essentials exempted) also not allowed in the city.

• Construction not allowed at linear public projects such as highways and flyovers.

• All industries in the city not running on clean fuels banned.

• Few measures are already adopted by government of Delhi and has shown successful result. It should also be implemented to other cities of India also as 10 amongst 15 cities in India are most polluted cities in the world.

If all the above measures will be implemented by the country then pollution can be decreased. Also it can give positive impact to human’s health because only with the pollution people are facing   many chronic diseases which will affect the lungs or heart etc.  

As a human being we should also take certain measures to support the country or the government by taking good initiative and also imply to all the rules of the country related to pollution. We should also make everyone aware for how never ending air pollution is harming our planet. 

It is time-that-we-start-taking-action-to-curb-air-pollution.

Ms. Swati Sharma