Not all Indians could afford to move abroad. How about 'public transport, walking and cycling' solutions?
In this poll season of high rhetoric and existential imponderables on how high or low is one's sub-caste is, there is one more item of boring, chill reality that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has put out. Friday's newspapers were out with the headlines that Delhi has beaten every big Chinese metropolis to top the world chart of the most-polluted cities.
"India is in the midst of national elections, but air pollution is rarely mentioned by leading politicians. At a recent embassy party here, several people expressed astonishment that New Delhi's air was considered dangerous. One of the guests, a marathon runner who jogs through Delhi's streets daily, said she had never noticed any problem with the air," notes The New York Times yesterday under the headline: 'Cities in India Among the Most Polluted, WHO. Says'. (http://goo.gl/QkzSfQ).
Bangalore does not find a prominent mention in the official WHO press release, not yet, but we have to assume it's there amongst the most polluted. The WHO report, based on a five-year study, says the survey covered 1,600 cities across the globe and that included 122 Indian cities.
In this suddenly pleasant turn in the city, after a frightening spell of hot day temperatures, we could all be lulled into false comfort. The NY Times report quotes Dr Sundeep Salvi, the director of the Chest Research Foundation, Pune: "I am shocked at the extent of the problem they found in India. This is incredibly bad, and there is a complete lack of awareness about it both amongst policy makers and the common man."
Just to keep it straight and simple, it needs to be mentioned that air pollution killed about 7 million people in 2012, the year for which the data is fully compiled. WHO believes air pollution is the world number one environmental health risk. The damage includes "stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma." The idea of prevention is boring to the policy makers because it is only too well-known. "Effective policies and strategies are well understood, but they need to be implemented at sufficient scale. Cities such as Copenhagen and Bogota, for example, have improved air quality by promoting 'active transport' and prioritising dedicated networks of urban public transport, walking and cycling," says the WHO release.
Public transport, walking and cycling. Not as glamorous as the stuff our thinkers and planners like to dwell on in budgets, seminars and election speeches, but there they are: 'Public transport, walking and cycling;' I mean, just in case it didn't register. WHO patiently details in its press release that planning must ensure: "...that urban development is compact and well served by public transport routes, that street design is appealing and safe for pedestrians and cyclists, and waste is well managed." (http://goo.gl/8dfv3M).
Is it too much to ask that we could all take a three-month holiday, after the elections results are out, from high issues like Secularism and Social Justice? Just three months, really, because the solutions have been worked out in other places of the world and we can just cut and paste on the policy papers, read them out and begin to implement them, project by project. Let us not forget that the people who suffer the most are amongst the poorest and most deprived, the very ones whom the high posturing seeks to protect from the fascists or whoever. The WHO report says, air pollution "was estimated to cause 3.7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012... the greatest number in the WHO Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions." It also notes that "indoor smoke is a serious health risk for some 3 billion people who cook and heat in their homes with biomass fuels and coal." It's not hard to guess where the majority of that three billion dwell, since India houses one-third of the world's poor people.
Incidentally, whichever government comes to power this time, India will be put through a phase of 'Dirty Development'. The outgoing minister of environment, abruptly appointed and put to work, our own Veerappa Moily, is believed to have said yes to about 15 billion USD worth of projects awaiting environmental clearances. The NDA manifesto, don't forget, is about 'development'. That should be the bigger worry, really. The next time, WHO compiles its database, Indian cities could fill the first 100 slots.
The scariest part of this story, I must repeat, is that nobody going by the label "thinker" in this country seems to care. The NY Times story also notes: "In Beijing, a pollution level as high as Delhi's would most likely have caused widespread concern. But in Delhi, almost no one seemed to notice. Few people here wear the filter masks that have been appearing on the streets of Beijing, and even among the wealthy, few own air purifiers, which are used widely in East Asia, because few are even aware of the problem."
It also quotes, without irony, a Delhi doctor who has advised an asthma patient to consider moving abroad, since his health seems to improve whenever he leaves India. Not all Indians could afford to, surely, you will agree. So, how about "public transport, walking and cycling" solutions, please?
