we have close to 1.3 billion population
in the country we have about 10 big
cities which host over 100 million
people and we have 50 cities with at
least 1 million population in them and
they cover about 30 to 35 percent of the
population and they cover in a land
cover land area of less than 5% in the
country so you have less than 5% of the
land cover hosting close to 35 to 40
percent of the population what we call
an urban extent and this would spread
across the country what we have the
rural India and we have a one of the
growing problems in the country is
basically air pollution and this problem
is not restricted to only to the cities
but we have it across the country so
when we come when it comes to air
pollution what are the different
pollutants that we usually have to worry
about there are many many pollutants
many metals minerals that we need to we
have lots of notes on and these are the
six very critical pollutants that we
need to worry about the top two are
particulate matter PM commonly also
known as aerosols dust soot and we have
many other names and they have different
sizes and to size fractions that we
really have to keep in mind these PM 2.5
and PM 10 PM 2.5 is particulate matter
with everything less than 2.5
micrometers diameter and the other one
is 10 micrometer diameter and smaller
the size higher the chain density
tendency for it to go into your lungs or
even get lodged in the bloodstream and
and leads to many other health impacts
and the other four you have on the list
these are gases you have very commonly
we have it in your notes as well sulfur
dioxide nitrogen oxide ozone and carbon
monoxide and especially in the high
schools we are very easily when the
first pollution that we are enlightened
to is carbon monoxide it gets attached
to hemoglobin and it leads to a lot of
health impacts
and you have commonly seeing a lot more
cases being registered on on asthma
other respiratory related issues we are
also seeing a greater increase in heart
related issues that can be linked to air
pollution and most of these cases they
do end up in a fatal situation but you
don’t see a death certificate which says
this person died of air pollution
because air pollution is only a trigger
if you’re already vulnerable to any of
these diseases it basically accelerates
your body towards that fatal situation
and that’s why we refer to it as
premature death what you see at the last
at the end so what it means is you’re in
medical terms we call them as disability
adjusted life years when you are because
you’re getting exposed to so much
pollution so much a variety of
pollutants
you are losing certain number of years
for living in a particular city so in
India the kind of pollution that we are
seeing on average estimate is that
compared to 20 years ago
we are losing three point six years life
years to the pollution that we are
exposed to and this is a lot of medical
research coming out and season 2009 the
central Pollution Control Board put
together data from different hospitals
looking at how many cases are very
spring that can be related to asthma or
other respiratory related issues and
Delhi of course came on top and the
statistics continue and this is from
2015 study only from aims in Delhi
looking at what has been the trend in
the number of cases registered or
patients that came to Ames and particle
chest institution as well so there was a
mark 300% increase in number of patients
coming to the hospital and lot of other
studies that
published but more remarkably there is
now a tremendous interest from the
public there was a case filed on behalf
of three toddlers by their parents in
Supreme Court asking for a ban on
firecrackers again this is a very
specific incident very specific
pollutant a polluting event that they
want to focus on but it has a large
implications and just to put a few more
things into perspective so this is from
2016 for one week only this is just
following Diwali and there were also a
lot of fires that happened in Punjab and
Haryana and the data that we were
logging at different monitoring stations
Peaks were at 3500 micrograms per meter
cube and a weekly average exposure rate
was about 500 micro meter cube and I
want you to compare that to what we call
as 24-hour standard health standard
about 60 microgram per meter cube and if
you go to WH o World Health Organization
guideline that is 25 so I mean you are
exposed to on average in the peak period
of October norm but December 20 times
more than what World Health Organization
says is a health guideline for that
particular pollutant and I’m putting a
little bit more emphasis on the on this
pollutant PM 2.5 is because it’s a
complex pollutant and it has
contributions from a variety of sources
and contributions from variety of
chemicals as well so we have other
gaseous pollutants so2 sulfur dioxide
nitrogen oxide ozone Co all of them
actually contribute in some kind of some
way or the other to the the PM 2.5 that
we are breathing on a daily basis so so
even though those specific examples for
Delhi only the problem is not restricted
to only Delhi it’s a nationwide problem
it’s a global problem and we are seeing
a significant rise in the pollution
levels that we are seeing not only in
the cities but also in the rural area
as well so based on data coming from the
satellites and it combined with some of
the data that’s coming from the on
ground monitoring stations and what we
see in terms of activities in different
cities and rural areas if we start
looking at the pattern what happened in
1998 what we have observed in 1998
versus 2014 there’s a marked difference
so is the number of districts of the 640
districts in India number of districts
that exceeded the national guideline in
1928 versus 2014 is 40 percent versus 60
percent and this is is only going to
increase as more and more districts are
going to be listed as urban centers and
more and more activities will be
contributing to this problem and we see
this marked difference also in the
health impacts again the global burden
of disease estimates these are done
every year based on the statistics
collected by the Minister of Health and
the Department of Housing so they
basically collect a lot of information
on the patterns of patients get to go
into the hospital what kind of elements
are they registering and the data is
collected and also looking at what is
the pattern in the air pollution across
these areas they have a way of putting
it together what we call as dose
response function and try to see the
change in these patterns like how often
do we see a certain disease increasing
and how that it can be correlated to the
patterns in an air pollution nutrition
behavioral patterns injuries accidents
traffic they look at about 250 different
endpoints and and come up with this
statistical estimate there’s a lot of
hand waving a number continued involved
but it tells us a good story on where we
are and where is just going okay so the
blue items these are non communicable
diseases and these have a very marked
linkage to air pollution that we have we
are expressing experiencing in the
cities and you will see on the top the
ischemic heart disease so
basically it has direct linkages to how
the blood is pumped to and from the
heart and a lot of cardiovascular
diseases lower respiratory infections
all of them have seen a marked increase
in the last 15 years okay if we convert
the same graph into risks what is
causing those diseases and where are
varies that is coming from you have you
see that a marked increase is coming
from again outdoor air pollution and
indoor air pollution okay so as I said
the problem is not restricted to cities
only even in the rural areas we have a a
lot of exposure issues – especially
indoor air pollution a lot of households
still use coal and biomass and cow dung
and a few other unconventional fuels and
they contribute significantly to our
health exposure rates but a good thing
is in 1990 household related health
effects were number one then they moved
to number four in 2015 so this gives us
direction where we have gone from 1992
to 2014 there has been a significant
improvement in in the expansion and this
distribution of LPG and also use of
electricity for cooking and heating that
changed some of that one that does
actually is included in this pattern
that we are seeing but a change which is
on the other side is in the outdoor air
pollution okay so more and more cities
are joining
what we call as urban areas and there we
have very high increase in basically
traffic lot of industries are coming up
in those areas lot of demand for
construction that links to all the brick
kilns we have a lot of waste management
issues if waste doesn’t pick get picked
up from the roads or from the bodies it
gets burnt after a week so you have a
lot of pollution from that so we are
seeing lot more urban signatures that
are linked to air pollution and health
than we
I’ve seen in the past so number
crunching on this side is not more
easier so things get a little bit more
complicated and difficult to ascertain
where is this pollution coming from okay
so this is where I think health experts
and scientists environmental scientists
have a little bit of a clash on how do
you apportion how much pollution is one
exposed to so you have power plants
running on coal diesel and and natural
gas so natural gas is obviously better
than coal but how do we enforce changes
into that you have a lot of industries I
mean if you you have industries ranging
from brick kilns for example even within
Pune
if you just go outside towards Cambridge
into art you have a lot of brick kilns
the demand for construction in the
cities is so high the the supply is
actually lot more lagging than we
actually think of and you have a lot of
industries kind of going from
fertilizers iron and steel cement a lot
of mineral processing that happens in
states like Bihar Rajasthan West Bengal
so we have a lot of that and then you
have vehicles when we have a very high
demand for Freight that comes into the
city
and we also have a very high demand for
personal vehicles and households this is
one sector which actually seeing a lot
more progress than we are seeing in the
other sectors and we shouldn’t be
neglecting some of the natural sources
of pollution that we have in in our
country especially dust storms lightning
a lot of forest fires that happen or the
season so all these things also
contribute but the biggest channel
remains in how do we apportion this
pollution to different sectors and what
can be done in this sector so that we
have a cleaner environment and good
health in cities and in rural areas
there’s a lot of innovation that’s
happening so both in terms of technology
but also in terms of public awareness as
well so you really need to focus on on
both ends you need to have technology
that can help you reduce pollution at
the sources and and across the cities
but we also need to raise the awareness
on air pollution to the public there’s
also a lot of innovations coming from
the artists as well they are raising
some awareness on on some of this this
is an installation by a Dutch artist
it’s in Beijing and they’re basically
pulling dust into this tower and
compressing it and making dust rings
they are very popular in in Beijing and
they make about 10 rings a day so it
actually use you an idea of how much
pollution is being sucked into that but
very important is we can’t rely on
vacuum cleaners I mean that’s that’s a
one way of raising awareness saying that
we are that we are catching so much
pollution because so much pollution is
there outside but if we want clean air
better health and a clean environment
for everybody to grow then we need to
basically start looking at how do we cut
down pollution at the sources and and it
sources range from your household
cooking and heating to waste to what’s
happening on the road and at the
industries I mean the whole range has to
be expressed and and we shouldn’t be
relying on vacuum cleaners and purifiers
alone to do the job for us thank you
you
in the country we have about 10 big
cities which host over 100 million
people and we have 50 cities with at
least 1 million population in them and
they cover about 30 to 35 percent of the
population and they cover in a land
cover land area of less than 5% in the
country so you have less than 5% of the
land cover hosting close to 35 to 40
percent of the population what we call
an urban extent and this would spread
across the country what we have the
rural India and we have a one of the
growing problems in the country is
basically air pollution and this problem
is not restricted to only to the cities
but we have it across the country so
when we come when it comes to air
pollution what are the different
pollutants that we usually have to worry
about there are many many pollutants
many metals minerals that we need to we
have lots of notes on and these are the
six very critical pollutants that we
need to worry about the top two are
particulate matter PM commonly also
known as aerosols dust soot and we have
many other names and they have different
sizes and to size fractions that we
really have to keep in mind these PM 2.5
and PM 10 PM 2.5 is particulate matter
with everything less than 2.5
micrometers diameter and the other one
is 10 micrometer diameter and smaller
the size higher the chain density
tendency for it to go into your lungs or
even get lodged in the bloodstream and
and leads to many other health impacts
and the other four you have on the list
these are gases you have very commonly
we have it in your notes as well sulfur
dioxide nitrogen oxide ozone and carbon
monoxide and especially in the high
schools we are very easily when the
first pollution that we are enlightened
to is carbon monoxide it gets attached
to hemoglobin and it leads to a lot of
health impacts
and you have commonly seeing a lot more
cases being registered on on asthma
other respiratory related issues we are
also seeing a greater increase in heart
related issues that can be linked to air
pollution and most of these cases they
do end up in a fatal situation but you
don’t see a death certificate which says
this person died of air pollution
because air pollution is only a trigger
if you’re already vulnerable to any of
these diseases it basically accelerates
your body towards that fatal situation
and that’s why we refer to it as
premature death what you see at the last
at the end so what it means is you’re in
medical terms we call them as disability
adjusted life years when you are because
you’re getting exposed to so much
pollution so much a variety of
pollutants
you are losing certain number of years
for living in a particular city so in
India the kind of pollution that we are
seeing on average estimate is that
compared to 20 years ago
we are losing three point six years life
years to the pollution that we are
exposed to and this is a lot of medical
research coming out and season 2009 the
central Pollution Control Board put
together data from different hospitals
looking at how many cases are very
spring that can be related to asthma or
other respiratory related issues and
Delhi of course came on top and the
statistics continue and this is from
2015 study only from aims in Delhi
looking at what has been the trend in
the number of cases registered or
patients that came to Ames and particle
chest institution as well so there was a
mark 300% increase in number of patients
coming to the hospital and lot of other
studies that
published but more remarkably there is
now a tremendous interest from the
public there was a case filed on behalf
of three toddlers by their parents in
Supreme Court asking for a ban on
firecrackers again this is a very
specific incident very specific
pollutant a polluting event that they
want to focus on but it has a large
implications and just to put a few more
things into perspective so this is from
2016 for one week only this is just
following Diwali and there were also a
lot of fires that happened in Punjab and
Haryana and the data that we were
logging at different monitoring stations
Peaks were at 3500 micrograms per meter
cube and a weekly average exposure rate
was about 500 micro meter cube and I
want you to compare that to what we call
as 24-hour standard health standard
about 60 microgram per meter cube and if
you go to WH o World Health Organization
guideline that is 25 so I mean you are
exposed to on average in the peak period
of October norm but December 20 times
more than what World Health Organization
says is a health guideline for that
particular pollutant and I’m putting a
little bit more emphasis on the on this
pollutant PM 2.5 is because it’s a
complex pollutant and it has
contributions from a variety of sources
and contributions from variety of
chemicals as well so we have other
gaseous pollutants so2 sulfur dioxide
nitrogen oxide ozone Co all of them
actually contribute in some kind of some
way or the other to the the PM 2.5 that
we are breathing on a daily basis so so
even though those specific examples for
Delhi only the problem is not restricted
to only Delhi it’s a nationwide problem
it’s a global problem and we are seeing
a significant rise in the pollution
levels that we are seeing not only in
the cities but also in the rural area
as well so based on data coming from the
satellites and it combined with some of
the data that’s coming from the on
ground monitoring stations and what we
see in terms of activities in different
cities and rural areas if we start
looking at the pattern what happened in
1998 what we have observed in 1998
versus 2014 there’s a marked difference
so is the number of districts of the 640
districts in India number of districts
that exceeded the national guideline in
1928 versus 2014 is 40 percent versus 60
percent and this is is only going to
increase as more and more districts are
going to be listed as urban centers and
more and more activities will be
contributing to this problem and we see
this marked difference also in the
health impacts again the global burden
of disease estimates these are done
every year based on the statistics
collected by the Minister of Health and
the Department of Housing so they
basically collect a lot of information
on the patterns of patients get to go
into the hospital what kind of elements
are they registering and the data is
collected and also looking at what is
the pattern in the air pollution across
these areas they have a way of putting
it together what we call as dose
response function and try to see the
change in these patterns like how often
do we see a certain disease increasing
and how that it can be correlated to the
patterns in an air pollution nutrition
behavioral patterns injuries accidents
traffic they look at about 250 different
endpoints and and come up with this
statistical estimate there’s a lot of
hand waving a number continued involved
but it tells us a good story on where we
are and where is just going okay so the
blue items these are non communicable
diseases and these have a very marked
linkage to air pollution that we have we
are expressing experiencing in the
cities and you will see on the top the
ischemic heart disease so
basically it has direct linkages to how
the blood is pumped to and from the
heart and a lot of cardiovascular
diseases lower respiratory infections
all of them have seen a marked increase
in the last 15 years okay if we convert
the same graph into risks what is
causing those diseases and where are
varies that is coming from you have you
see that a marked increase is coming
from again outdoor air pollution and
indoor air pollution okay so as I said
the problem is not restricted to cities
only even in the rural areas we have a a
lot of exposure issues – especially
indoor air pollution a lot of households
still use coal and biomass and cow dung
and a few other unconventional fuels and
they contribute significantly to our
health exposure rates but a good thing
is in 1990 household related health
effects were number one then they moved
to number four in 2015 so this gives us
direction where we have gone from 1992
to 2014 there has been a significant
improvement in in the expansion and this
distribution of LPG and also use of
electricity for cooking and heating that
changed some of that one that does
actually is included in this pattern
that we are seeing but a change which is
on the other side is in the outdoor air
pollution okay so more and more cities
are joining
what we call as urban areas and there we
have very high increase in basically
traffic lot of industries are coming up
in those areas lot of demand for
construction that links to all the brick
kilns we have a lot of waste management
issues if waste doesn’t pick get picked
up from the roads or from the bodies it
gets burnt after a week so you have a
lot of pollution from that so we are
seeing lot more urban signatures that
are linked to air pollution and health
than we
I’ve seen in the past so number
crunching on this side is not more
easier so things get a little bit more
complicated and difficult to ascertain
where is this pollution coming from okay
so this is where I think health experts
and scientists environmental scientists
have a little bit of a clash on how do
you apportion how much pollution is one
exposed to so you have power plants
running on coal diesel and and natural
gas so natural gas is obviously better
than coal but how do we enforce changes
into that you have a lot of industries I
mean if you you have industries ranging
from brick kilns for example even within
Pune
if you just go outside towards Cambridge
into art you have a lot of brick kilns
the demand for construction in the
cities is so high the the supply is
actually lot more lagging than we
actually think of and you have a lot of
industries kind of going from
fertilizers iron and steel cement a lot
of mineral processing that happens in
states like Bihar Rajasthan West Bengal
so we have a lot of that and then you
have vehicles when we have a very high
demand for Freight that comes into the
city
and we also have a very high demand for
personal vehicles and households this is
one sector which actually seeing a lot
more progress than we are seeing in the
other sectors and we shouldn’t be
neglecting some of the natural sources
of pollution that we have in in our
country especially dust storms lightning
a lot of forest fires that happen or the
season so all these things also
contribute but the biggest channel
remains in how do we apportion this
pollution to different sectors and what
can be done in this sector so that we
have a cleaner environment and good
health in cities and in rural areas
there’s a lot of innovation that’s
happening so both in terms of technology
but also in terms of public awareness as
well so you really need to focus on on
both ends you need to have technology
that can help you reduce pollution at
the sources and and across the cities
but we also need to raise the awareness
on air pollution to the public there’s
also a lot of innovations coming from
the artists as well they are raising
some awareness on on some of this this
is an installation by a Dutch artist
it’s in Beijing and they’re basically
pulling dust into this tower and
compressing it and making dust rings
they are very popular in in Beijing and
they make about 10 rings a day so it
actually use you an idea of how much
pollution is being sucked into that but
very important is we can’t rely on
vacuum cleaners I mean that’s that’s a
one way of raising awareness saying that
we are that we are catching so much
pollution because so much pollution is
there outside but if we want clean air
better health and a clean environment
for everybody to grow then we need to
basically start looking at how do we cut
down pollution at the sources and and it
sources range from your household
cooking and heating to waste to what’s
happening on the road and at the
industries I mean the whole range has to
be expressed and and we shouldn’t be
relying on vacuum cleaners and purifiers
alone to do the job for us thank you
you
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