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The environmental pollution affect the health of more than 120 million people worldwide.
Pollution is the contaminant into a natural environment, usually by humans. The specific types of pollution are Land pollution, Air Pollution, Water pollution
(Oceans, rivers, ground water) , Plastic pollution, Noise pollution, Light pollution, space Ozone layer and more.
The World Health Organization (WHO) latest report shows that air pollution has caused the death of seven million people in 2012
In India the increasing economic development and a rapidly growing population that has taken the country from 300 million people in 1947
to more than one billion people today is putting a strain on the environment, infrastructure, and the country’s natural resources.
Industrial pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, rapid industrialization, urbanization, and land degradation are all worsening problems. Overexploitation of the country's resources be it land or water and the
industrialization process has resulted environmental degradation of resources. India's per capita carbon dioxide emissions were roughly 3,000 pounds (1,360
kilograms) in 2007, according to the study. That's small compared to China and the U.S., with 10,500 pounds (4,763 kilograms) and 42,500 pounds (19,278
kilograms) respectively that year. The study said European Union and Russia also have more emissions than India. |
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India has the worst Air pollution ,
in the entire world, beating China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, according to a study released during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Of 132 countries whose
environments were surveyed, India ranks dead last in the ‘Air (effects on human health)’ ranking.
The World Health Organization
estimates that about two million people die prematurely every year as a result of Air pollution , while many more suffer
from breathing ailments, heart disease, lung infections and even cancer. Fine particles or microscopic dust from coal or wood fires and unfiltered diesel
engines are rated as one of the most lethal forms or air pollution caused by industry, transport, household heating, cooking and ageing coal or oil-fired power stations.
The study says burning CNG has the highest rates of potentially hazardous carbonyl emissions. The study also made a case for regulating CNG
and other fuels for methane emissions. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is a key contributor to climate Change. Among the study's finds were that retrofitted CNG
car engines emit 30% more methane than original CNG engines. Almost all CNG car engines in India are retrofitted. |
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Coal pollution: India’s environmental problems are exacerbated by its heavy reliance on coal for power generation.
More than 80 per cent of energy is produced from coal, a fuel that emits a high amount of carbon and greenhouse gases, said Bikash. According to IMF chief Christine Lagarde pollution from coal generation
plants causes about 70,000 premature deaths every year in India. Andhra Pradesh, the coastal state of eastern India is experiencing a coal-plant
construction boom, including the 4,000-MW Krishnapatnam Ultra Mega Power Project, one of nine such massive projects in planning or under construction in country.
Polluting industrial units: On May 26, 2011 the Haryana State Pollution Control Board has ordered closure of 639
polluting industrial units in 2010-11 and directed the highly polluting industries to set up continuous online monitoring stations to ensure
compliance of standards of air emissions. The Government has launched prosecution against 151 polluting units in the Special Environment Courts in Faridabad and Kurukshetra, install 9,239 units
Brick kilns are noxious sources of pollution: India’s 100,000 brick kilns are noxious sources of pollution, particularly soot,
and working them means a life that is always nasty, frequently brutish and often short. But on top of this social evil is an environmental one.
Aircraft pollutants: According to a study published in the journal Environmental Science and
Technology (EST) in the first week of October 2010, almost 8,000 people will die due to aircraft pollutants this year, and 3,500 of them would be from India and China.
Vehicle emissions are responsible for 70% of the country’s air pollution. The major problem with government efforts to
safeguard the environment has been enforcement at the local level, not with a lack of laws. Air pollution from vehicle exhaust and industry is a worsening problem for India. Exhaust from vehicles has increased eight-fold
over levels of twenty years ago; industrial pollution has risen four times over the same period. The economy has grown two and a half times over the past two decades but pollution control and civil services have not kept pace. Air quality is worst in big cities like
Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, etc.
Bangalore holds the title of being the asthma capital of the country. Air pollution in the city continues to rise due to vehicular emissions and dust from construction activities, according to the "Environment
Report Card of Bangalore 2012".
CHENNAI: Exhaust from vehicles, dust from construction debris, industrial waste, burning of municipal and garden waste are all on the rise in the city. So are respiratory diseases,
including asthma. At least six of the 10 top causes of death are related to respiratory disease, says Dr D Ranganathan, director (in-charge), Institute of Thoracic Medicine.
Mumbai: Not only are levels of Suspended Particulate Matter above permissible limits in Mumbai, but the worst pollutant after vehicular emissions has grown at an alarming rate.
The levels of Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM), or dust, in Mumbai’s air have continued to increase over the past three years.
Bhopal: Bhopal gas tragedy was the greatest
industrial disaster in the world that took place at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. At
midnight on 3 December 1984, the plant accidentally released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, exposing more than 500,000 people to MIC and
other chemicals. The first official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787
deaths related to the gas release Others estimate 8,000-10,000 died within 72 hours and 25,000 have since died from gas-related diseases, making it the deadliest man-made environmental disaster in history.
The effects of air pollution are obvious: rice crop yields in southern India are falling as brown clouds block out more and more sunlight. The brilliant white of the famous
Taj Mahal is slowly fading to a sickly yellow.
Birds and species affected: The population of 50 percent of the 288 species recorded in the western
Himalayas according to World Environment Day 2015. |
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Indoor air pollution: Indoor air pollution is the most important cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in India, says a prevalence study conducted by
Pune-based Chest Research Foundation (CRF) and the Imperial College, London in November 2010. Over 700 million people in India suffer from high levels of indoor air pollution affecting women and young children as 75 per
cent homes use biomass fuel like wood, crop residue and dung cakes.
Contaminated and polluted water now kills more people than all forms of violence including wars, according to a United Nations report released
on March 22, 2010 on World Water Day that calls for turning unsanitary wastewater into an environmentally safe economic resource. According to the report -- titled "Sick Water?" -- 90 percent of wastewater
discharged daily in developing countries is untreated, contributing to the deaths of some 2.2 million people a year from
diarrhea diseases caused by
unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene. At least 1.8 million children
younger than 5 die every year from water-related diseases.
Fully 80 percent of urban waste in India ends up in the country's rivers, and unchecked urban growth across the country combined with poor government oversight means the problem is
only getting worse. A growing number of bodies of water in India are unfit for human use, and in the
River Ganga, holy to the country's 82 percent Hindu majority, is dying slowly due to unchecked pollution.
New Delhi's body of water is little more than a flowing
garbage dump, with fully 57 percent of the city's waste finding its way to the Yamuna. It is that three billion liters of waste are pumped into Delhi's Yamuna
(River Yamuna) each day. Only 55 percent of the 15 million Delhi residents are connected to the city's sewage system. |
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Groundwater exploitation is a serious matter of concern today and legislations and policy measures taken till date, by the state governments
(water is a state subject) have not had the desired effect on the situation.
Groundwater Quality and Pollution is most alarming pollution hazards in India. On
April 01, 2010 at least 18 babies in several hamlets of Bihar’s Bhojpur district have been born blind in the past three months because their families consume groundwater
containing alarming levels of arsenic, confirmed by Bihar’s Health Minister Nand Kishore Yadav on Wednesday,
31st March 2010 confirmed the cases of blindness in newborns in arsenic- affected blocks of the district.
Plastic bags, plastic thin sheets and plastic waste is also a major source of pollution. A division bench of Allahabad High Court, comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Arun
Tandon, in May 03, 2010 had directed the Ganga Basin Authority and the state government to take appropriate action to ban the use of polythene in the vicinity of Ganga in the entire state. Also
Plastic Bag Pollution in the country is the biggest hazards.
India’s urban population slated to increase from the current 330 million to about 600 million by 2030,
the challenge of managing municipal solid waste (MSW) in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner is bound to assume gigantic proportions .
The country has over 5,000 cities and towns, which generate about 40 million tonnes of MSW per year today.
Going by estimates of The Energy Research Institute (TERI), this could well touch 260 million tonnes per year by 2047. |
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