Small cities replace metros as most polluted

New Delhi, Apr 21 (UNI) Raipur in Chhattisgarh has the most polluted air in the country while Jharia in Jharkhand and Jalandhar in Punjab are second and third in Centre for Science and Environment's list of cities with most polluted air.

More and more Indian cities--a number of which were small, non-metro--were turning into smog-encased pollution hotspots, according to CSE research published in its latest book 'The Leapfrog Factor: Clearing the air in Asian cities'.

Even while metros, Delhi leading the pack, had taken measures to check air pollution and reduce their pollutant load, small cities were recording alarmingly high pollution.

While pollution had reduced in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Mumbai, it had shot up in Raipur, Jharia, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Alwar, Lucknow, Satna, Korba, Faridabad and Indore.

Congestion and pollution from vehicles was threatening to destroy the quality of life in not only big cities but the mobility crisis was building up in all Indian cities because a large share of daily travel trips was being made by personal transport.

Indian cities were in the grip of an overwhelming mobility crisis -- congestion and pollution from personal cars. Greater number of small cities were swamped by pollution, as the list of ten most polluted cities in the country had no metros in it.

As a result, public transport -- which was the key to leveraging change towards sustainable mobility -- was collapsing in most cities.

Only eight of the 35 cities that had more than a million population had dedicated bus services; even these were under extreme pressure.

Approximately 80 million trips needed to be catered daily in the metro cities, but the available rail and bus transport could cater only 37 million. However, scenario in other Indian cities was grim. Some cities in India had seen a decline in their pollution levels.

In fact, according to a World Bank study, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad had seen about 13,000 less premature deaths due to air pollution-related diseases.

Moreover, a much larger number of cities were in the grip of killer pollution today - as many as 57 per cent of the cities monitored in the country had critical PM 10 levels (more than 1.5 times the standards).

On one hand newer and smaller cities were scaling the pollution peak and were more polluted than even the metros, while on the other hand India still does not have a legal framework to meet air quality standards.

In fact, the growing air pollution menace was deadly for the urban poor in India, 50 to 60 per cent of who live in slums. Each year, two-third of the 0.8 million deaths and 4.6 million lost life attributed to air pollution worldwide, occured in developing Asian countries, like India.

UNI IP SI BST1613