One ‘satisfactory air’ day from Jan 1 to Feb 24: Study

KOLKATA: Nearly 3,750 vehicles are on the move per minute on city roads between 8am and 8pm, spewing a cocktail of killer gases and soot that has the city gasping for breath. This adds up to 27 lakh vehicles in half a day or 45,000 an hour with each emitting noxious fumes and fine particulate matter that sneak into our blood stream causing various ailments, including cancer.The high concentration of vehicles is made acute by the limited road length of 1,404 km, which accounts for barely 6% of the city’s total area, with the majority being just two-lane roads. Of the nearly 3,750 vehicles, over 1,900 are in central Kolkata alone. According to a recent vehicle density study by Kolkata Police, the average count in south Kolkata is 6 lakh, 13.7 lakh in central Kolkata and 7 lakh in north Kolkata.“Such a huge volume of emission from these vehicles has left the city gasping for breath in winter when particulate pollution peaks,” said Kalyan Rudra, chairman, West Bengal Pollution Control Board, at a workshop on tracking Kolkata’s rising air pollution on Thursday. As a way out, he suggested Kolkatans use public transport more to reduce their carbon footprint. The workshop was organised by Climate Trends and Legal Initiative for Forests and Environment.Going beyond the regular stations at Victoria Memorial, RBU campus and the US Consulate, the two environment groups had installed low cost monitoring devices at 4 city junctions to analyse the exposure levels of particulate matter.The data from these four devices —near National Medical College Hospital, Dunlop Crossing, Narayana Hospital and Silver Spring near EM Bypass — recorded between January 1 and February 24 shows zero ‘good’ air quality days in Kolkata and just one day of ‘satisfactory’ air quality across all four devices.While Dunlop Crossing readings ranged between “very poor” and “severe” on the air quality index, the area around Don Bosco school and EM Bypass ranged between “poor” and “severe”, and readings near Narayana hospital remained around “very poor” on an average.While pollution levels escalate in the city, it is the inhabitants who pay the price. Dr Raja Dhar, director pulmonology at Fortis Hospital shared a worrying example. “I recently had a 28-year-old patient, married two years ago and father of a 4-month-old son, diagnosed with lung cancer and won’t survive more than a year. That’s the image you need to remember when you think of air pollution. Innocent people with bright future ahead suffering from this disease due to no fault of theirs.”“In 1988, 10% non-smokers had lung cancer, in 2018, 50% non-smokers suffer from lung cancer. Average age of lung cancer has also gone down from 50-60 years to 30-40 years. In 1988, there were no female cases of lung cancer, today 40% of women’s cancer cases are those of lung,” said Dr Dhar.“Only 57 cities currently have real-time monitoring stations in the country, rest are manual that don’t make data easily accessible for public consumption. While low cost monitors are not a replacement for the regulatory grade CPCB and state PCB monitors, these devices have helped democratise the data to start a public debate on rising threat of air pollution in many cities in India, and in Kolkata as well,’ said Aarti Khosla, director, Climate Trends.Kolkata is one of the 102 non-attainment cities listed under the National Clean Air Programme. “In West Bengal 90% of projects for environment impact assessment clearance are construction projects. We have an entire list of stipulations with a focus on air pollution, right from scaffolding to parking and the quality of roads around the project. But the crucial missing aspect is monitoring of these projects, which is managed by PCB which is strapped for staff and infrastructure,” said Ujjwal Kumar Bhattacharya, chairman, State Environment Impact Assessment Authority.