Tag: Pollution in India

  • Adherence to environmental and pollution norms cannot be compromised, says Supreme Court

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Thursday said that adherence to environmental and pollution norms cannot be compromised for factual misunderstandings or due to “cryptic determination”.

    It also said the public interest would warrant action against polluting units and orders which have direct repercussions on the right to a clean environment must be the outcome of scrutiny and substantive deliberation as per the applicable facts.

    The top court observed while setting aside an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which had said that an application pending before it does not require adjudication in light of the order passed while disposing of another plea in a matter about two stone crushers in a village in Nainital district of Uttarakhand.

    ​ALSO READ | Air pollution: Traffic Police bans entry of trucks in Delhi

    “There can be no quarrel with the proposition that public interest would warrant action against polluting units. This is equally applicable to those industrial units which have been functioning since long,” a bench of Justices R Subhash Reddy and Hrishikesh Roy said in its 14-page judgement.

    “Adherence to the environmental and pollution norms cannot be compromised for factual misunderstandings or due to cryptic determination. Orders which have direct repercussions on the right to clean environment must surely be the outcome of scrutiny and substantive deliberation, as per the applicable facts,” the apex court said.

    The bench said that the NGT was required to address the grievance on the adverse health impacts on the local populace by the stone crushers.

    It said the tribunal itself had recognized that orders were necessary to resolve the issue.

    “The factual determination had reflected the need to ensure heightened compliance with the environmental norms for the concerned area,” it said.

    ​ALSO READ | Uttar Pradesh’s first anti-air pollution tower starts operating in Noida

    The bench delivered the verdict on an appeal against the August 2019 order of the NGT.

    The appellant in the apex court had contended that as per an April 2014 report, the two stone crusher units were operating in violation of the statutory environmental norms, in close vicinity of the village, schools, and colleges.

    The bench noted that the application, which was registered in pursuance of the adverse government report against the stone crushers and was disposed of by the NGT by an order which is under challenge before it, was never adjudicated on merits.

    It said the contesting parties before it was in agreement on the aspect that the NGT should have decided the application on merit, instead of closing the proceeding, as a disposed of the matter.

    “We are therefore of the opinion that the view taken in the impugned order to the effect that the OA no….does not require adjudication, does not appear to be in order and the same is therefore set aside,”  the bench said.

    It restored the application and ordered that it be adjudicated on merit.

    It said that the tribunal should render its decision without being influenced by the observations made in the judgement.

    The top court noted that the appellant before it, along with his father, had initially moved the NGT for relocating the two stone crushers alleging unbearable sufferings due to noise and air pollution emanating from those units.

  • Centre says there’s ‘no conclusive data to establish direct correlation of death, disease due to air pollution’

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: There is no conclusive data available to establish a direct correlation of death and disease exclusively due to air pollution, Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

    He was responding to a question on whether the government has undertaken any study about the ill effects caused by pollution on asthma patients, lungs of children and pregnant women in the country during the last three months of year 2019.

    In a written reply, Choubey said air pollution is one of the many factors affecting respiratory ailments and associated diseases.

    Health is impacted by a number of factors which includes food habits, occupational habits, socio-economic status, medical history, immunity, heredity of the individuals apart from the environment, he said.“There is no conclusive data available to establish a direct correlation of death/disease exclusively due to air pollution,” he said.The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Ministry of Health along with Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has conducted the study ‘India State-level Disease Burden Initiative’. The report, titled ‘India: Health of the Nation’s States- The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative’ was published in 2017.

    “The study report provided the distribution of diseases and risk factors across all states of the country from 1990 to 2016.

    The five leading risk factors for Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in 2016 includes child and maternal malnutrition, air pollution, dietary risks, high systolic blood pressure, and high fasting plasma glucose.

    “The study reported that the DALYs due to air pollution decreased by 23.6 per cent in India from 1990 to 2016,” he said

  • Smaller cities including Visakhapatnam, Agra and Lucknow saw more pollution this winter: Analysis

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: As the winter nears end, an analysis of winter pollution levels shows that smaller cities fared poorer compared to mega cities. 

    ​The analysis of real time data by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shows  north India is most polluted while cities of the northeast show lower averages but higher toxicity as the share of PM2.5 in PM10 is considerably high in those cities. 

    The analysis has considered 99 cities where data availability for two consecutive winters meets the minimum criteria of requirement for 75 per cent of data completeness.

    Overall, winter PM2.5 levels have worsened significantly in 43 cities out of 99 cities that have valid daily PM2.5 concentration data for over 75 per cent of days for this and previous winters.

    This pool of cities mostly consist of Tier-1 or even smaller cities. Most prominent among them are Gurugram, Lucknow, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam, Agra, Navi Mumbai and Jodhpur. Kolkata is the only mega city in this group.

    Out of the 99 cities considered, 19 have experienced substantial improvement in their winter air quality compared to the previous winter. Chennai is the only mega city included in this pool. 

    ​There is also wide variation in peak pollution level experienced during winter. In about 37 cities that are otherwise showing stable or declining seasonal average their peak levels have risen significantly during winter. 

    Toxic Air

         8 of the top 10 most polluted cities in UP
         1st rank went to Ghaziabad in UP
         5th spot went to national capital Delhi
         10th slot was occupied by Bhiwadi in Rajasthan
         26 cities in North India showed increasing trend
         5 cities in South India showed increasing trend