The Union Health and Environment Ministries are likely to collaborate on a series of studies to determine the long-term impact of air pollution on health in India. This comes on the heels of a report that attributed around a million air-pollution deaths in India, in 2015, to air-pollution.
Earlier this month, the Environment Ministry told Parliament that a sharp causal link couldn’t be drawn between pollution levels and deaths in India.
“Unless both Ministries work in a coordinated manner, there cannot be a solution,” Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda said at a press briefing.
‘Efficient utilisation’
He said the Union Budget allocation of Rs. 47,352 crore was a “significant rise” and marked a departure from the previous years when there were budget cuts.
“The government before us was better known for hiking and then slashing… We have been able to utilise the money at our disposal efficiently,” he added.
Even as the government made cuts in funding for HIV programmes in the previous years, Mr. Nadda said there was a Rs. 300-crore increase in the allocation this year, and the government would focus on addressing the increasing instances of breast and cervical cancer, hypertension and diabetes.
