‘At 2.5m, India topped 2015 pollution deaths’

New Delhi: India has topped the list of countries with the most pollution-related deaths in 2015, with 2.5 million mortalities linked to air, water and other types of pollution, a report by international journal Lancet shows. It also topped the list of deaths linked to polluted air (1.81million) and water (0.64 million).

The figure of number of deaths due to air pollution, compiled by the Lancet study, is, in fact, over 7,00,000 more than what an another international report, State of Global Air (SGA) 2017, had come out with earlier this year. The SGA report had put this figure for India at 10,90,400 deaths as compared to 11,08,100 in China.

The differences in figures of the two reports can be attributed to the different set of data and parameters used by them. The SGA report had taken fine particulate matter ( PM 2.5) as a prime measure. The Lancet report, however, is based on data from the Global Burden of Disease study which analysed multiple parameters over two years to arrive at the figures. Accordingly, the Lancet study noted that foul air was linked to 6.5 million deaths worldwide whereas the SGA report put this figure at 4.2 million.

The Lancet report shows most of these deaths were due to non-communicable diseases caused by pollution, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In fact, pollution is now the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world, accounting for almost three times more of those than from HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria put together.

The Lancet study has also arrived at a financial cost from pollution-related deaths, saying it totalled some $4.6 trillion, which is about 6.2% of the global economy. It says the costs of pollution-related death and disease are highly concentrated in developing regions, equivalent to around 1.3% of the GDP in low-income countries, compared to around 0.5% GDP in high-income countries, and 0.13% GDP globally.

Experts say the huge population of countries like In- dia and China and the fact that these are developing economies should also be kept in mind while analysing these statistics.

To tackle the problem, the health ministry had formed two committees — a steering committee and a multi-sectoral group — to analyse the trend and suggest actions to

Rate of deaths attributable to pollution (pollution deaths per 100,000 population)

reduce pollution and its impact, as well as measures to strengthen the healthcare system to handle the increasing disease burden linked with pollution. “We have already started taking action based on the recommendations made by the two groups. For instance, we have now included respiratory diseases under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. We have also allocated funds to states for the same,” the official said.

Among the authors of the study are former environment minister Jairam Ramesh and IIT-Delhi’s Prof Mukesh Khare.