Says govt relies only on Indian institutions, and takes action based on their study
Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave sought to play down the ‘State of Global Air’ report on Friday which said outdoor air pollution is causing more premature deaths in India than China. The report by Boston-based Health Effects Institute and Washington University’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation was released earlier this week, and it highlighted that there was nearly a 50 per cent rise in pollution-linked premature deaths in India between 1990 and 2015. The report added that long-term exposure to PM2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres in size) contributed to 4.2 million deaths and led to a loss of 103 million years of healthy life. China and India together accounted for 52 per cent of the total global deaths attributable to PM2.5.
“We don’t work on the basis of reports from outside. India believes in its own reports and we take decisions based on our own reports,” said Dave on the sidelines of the Science Express flagging off ceremony. He added, “Pollution is an issue and people do suffer from it, but we rely on reports made by Indian institutions.” When asked about the link between hazardous air pollution and deaths, Dave said, “There are several other reasons associated with this and we are concerned with that. I don’t want to comment on sensational issues.”
This is not the first instance when the Environment, Forest and Climate change Minister has denied that air pollution is linked to mortality. During the last winter session of Parliament, Dave told the Rajya Sabha that there is a clear link between mortality and air pollution. In fact, his predecessor, Prakash Javadekar, too denied past international reports of the World Health Organization (WHO) on the issue. Last May, the WHO published a report that listed 30 Indian cities as some of the most polluted globally. Javadekar had termed the report as “misleading” and said that the report factored only particulate matter pollution, ignoring other parameters.
The ‘State of Global Air’ report pointed out that the rise in deaths in India attributable to ozone pollution was alarming. Although ozone caused fewer deaths than PM 2.5, the number of deaths linked to ozone rose 60 per cent since 1990 and India registered a 67 per cent increase in ozone related deaths.
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