Choked: Visibly so!

The air quality in northern India is so badly impacted this year that the National Green Tribunal was recently forced to ask the central government to take concrete steps to check the burning of crop residues that result in choking smog spells and aggravating the already high pollution levels in Delhi. The tribunal asked the environment ministry to issue directions under the Environment Protection Act 1986 as “mere advisories are not going to help.”

“High pollution in the winters in Delhi has become a regular affair every year but neither the Centre nor the states are taking this issue seriously. So many alerts and scientific shreds of evidence are there on record and still, both the environment and agriculture ministries are not acting,” Vikrant Tongad, environment conservationist and petitioner in the NGT regarding air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region reportedly said.

“We should go beyond technological transfers and evolve pathways for pollution control as there are co-benefits of reducing greenhouse gases and reducing the health burden. We need to develop larger frameworks to mobilize resources and invest in technological innovations,” said Dr R K Pachauri, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Injurious to health & wealth

Air pollution, arising out of smog and other pollutants, drastically reduced wheat yields in densely populated states in the country by nearly 50 per cent, making them significantly lower than what they could have been in 2010, said a recent study titled ‘Recent climate and air pollution impacts on Indian agriculture,’ published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the assessment that has analyzed data for the last 30 years, up to 90 per cent of the decrease in potential food production seems linked to smog, made up of black carbon and other pollutants. The remaining 10 per cent are accounted for by factors like changes linked to global warming and precipitation levels.

Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) in consultation with the Punjab Government, set up a task force in August 2006 to address the problem of paddy stubble burning. The panel recorded that open burning of residue in the fields killed microflora and fauna beneficial to soil and removed a large portion of the organic material, thereby depleting the organic matter in the fields. On the other hand, the suspended particulate matter in the air coming from the smoke aggravated chronic heart diseases and lung ailments, besides causing respiratory problems such as asthma.

In fact, the health impacts of toxic air are a bigger concern. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that of the 67 risk factors studied in their Global Burden of Disease project, outdoor air pollution contributed to over 627,000 deaths and 17.7 million healthy years of life lost in 2010. It was ranked fifth in mortality and seventh in health burden in India.

According to data provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research, the highest number of lung cancer cases during 2009-11 had been reported in metro cities like Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. Scientific research has established that people exposed to pollution caused by heavy traffic run a higher risk of heart attacks. And patients suffering from diabetes are the worst victims of air pollution caused by vehicle emissions, it said.

Exhausted!

Chemicals discharged by diesel-fueled vehicles have a deadly effect due to the presence of carbon particles in them. These particles are known for their role in increasing the severity of asthma attacks. The combination of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight forms ground-level ozone leads to lethal effects on the environment as well as the respiratory system, causing symptoms like choking and coughing.

Health complications like asthma, heart disease and emphysema are some of the problems that emerge due to the harmful effects of ozone. This particular gas can delay the growth of plants apart from damaging the production of crops.

Nitrogen oxides found in vehicular emissions have an adverse effect on the immunity system of our body against infectious diseases like pneumonia and influenza. Carbon monoxide is another harmful element resulting from vehicular emission. This gas affects the activity of hemoglobin by forming carboxyhemoglobin in the blood. This situation leads to a number of health complications.

If current trends in vehicle population, fuel and emission standards persist, Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 emissions will increase by a factor of three, and those of NOx will increase by a factor of five, said a new report by TERI, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The transport sector contributes about 15 to 50 per cent of PM 2.5 emissions in cities and is a dominant contributor to NOx emissions, it added.

Vehicular emissions contribute to particulate matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM 2.5) and to Nitrogen oxides, NO and NO2 (NOx). NOx in turn leads to the production of ozone. PM 2.5 is the dominant contributor to premature deaths and numerous other illnesses, followed by ozone and NOx and these are the major contributors to agricultural impacts, said the report titled ‘Options to reduce road transport pollution in India.’

“In 1991, there were 20 million vehicles in India. The number had skyrocketed to 140 million in 2011, and by 2030, vehicle population is expected to reach a staggering 400 million. We need multiple strategies to bring regulatory agencies and the regulated communities together and provide incentives to reduce the pollution load,” said Dr Mary Nichols, Chairman, CARB, while participating in a conference on air pollution organized recently by TERI in the national capital.

Burn out!

According to images released by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), huge amounts of crop residues are being burnt in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The latest images captured by the aqua (water) satellite of the American space agency on November 11 showed high concentrations (outlined in red) of fires concentrated in the north and northwestern regions.

“It is once again assumed that the fires were deliberately set to manage the land. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality. The haze of smoke is making its way southward from the fires, creating a large swathe of grey across a good portion of the country,” NASA said on its website. NASA has been capturing images of crop fires during winters for the past four years. It has been noticed that the air pollution level in Delhi-NCR is continuously rising because of the smoke released from the nearby states due to paddy stubble burning. The north and northwesterly winds that blow in from these states towards Delhi-NCR bring huge amounts of soot from emissions of crop burning.

Massive crop residue burning takes place in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and Punjab despite a ban in the latter. The issue of open straw burning is currently monitored by the NGT, which has directed the agriculture ministry to draft guidelines preventing the hazardous practice at the earliest. The agriculture ministry had recently told the NGT that it had finalized national guidelines for states to halt the burning of crop residue.

A study conducted by the National Remote Sensing Agency indicated that paddy burning in Punjab contributed 261 giga gram (Gg; 1 Gg=1,000 metric tonne) of carbon mono dioxide, 19.8 Gg of nitrogen oxide and other gases to the atmosphere. Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, has estimated that total crop residue (paddy and wheat) contained 6 million tonne of carbon, which on burning could produce 22 million tonne of carbon dioxide. The process of burning of rice straw discharges gases like methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, which adversely affect human health as well as the environment. It causes asthma and a host of long-term diseases on one hand and also increases air pollution to monstrous levels.

It has been officially stated that the burning of paddy straw residue causes soil nutrient loss — 3.85 million tonne of organic carbon; 59,000 tonne nitrogen, 20,000 tonne phosphorus and 34,000 tonne of potassium — besides severely affecting the quality of ambient air. A recent government report published in the Indian Journal of Air Pollution Control reads: “The nutrient budget of the soil is adversely affected. Straw carbon, nitrogen and Sulphur are completely burnt and lost to the atmosphere in the process of burning.” These nutrients then have to be replenished through organic or inorganic fertilizers, which come at a cost.

Can it be managed?

Yes. The TERI report titled ‘Options to reduce road transport pollution in India’ establishes the scientific basis for reducing emissions, the technologies available and governance issues that need to be urgently addressed to improve air quality in Indian cities. 

“Tackling air pollution may seem a complex problem, but California has demonstrated how drastic reductions in air pollution can be achieved. We simply cannot ignore the linkages and the multi-dimensional impacts of air pollution – for instance, ozone pollution leads to massive crop losses,” said Prof V Ramanathan, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The Supreme Court has approved a plan to encourage the usage of greener fuel across the country. R A Mashelkar, the chief of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has proposed a plan to establish the National Automobile and Pollution and Fuel Authority for an effective working procedure for this plan.

The usage of pollution-free vehicles is an effective solution to this problem. A switchover to battery-powered electric vehicles, solar-powered cars, biodiesel, hydrogen fuel, carpooling, underground rapid transit system, CNG-operated vehicles and bicycles is also moot. Besides, it is also the responsibility of common people to act consciously in order to avoid vehicular pollution. To curb the impact of crop residue burning, the Punjab task force on paddy stubble burning issued recommendations such as reduction of area under paddy, better use of straw by its incorporation in the soil, direct sowing of wheat without removing the paddy straw from the fields and using straw for mulching and to generate power. However, most of the recommendations have remained on paper. The area under paddy has not come down - varying between 26 lakh and 28.5 lakh hectares since 2000. The central government has now asked Punjab to drastically cut the area under paddy because of other reasons too, including increased production in other states. The farmers can opt for these viable and profitable alternatives but the real hurdle lies in lack of awareness.

Farmers sell rice straw to brick kilns and the paper packaging industry. And in the past couple of years, the power industry has offered a way out, paying the farmers in cash for the straw. Companies like Punjab Biomass Power Ltd (PBPL) in Ghanaur have started sending their own machinery to collect straw so that farmers do not get late for their next crop. And paddy stubble burning in the fields will soon be history in the Fazilka district of Punjab. A private company A to Z Infrastructure Pvt Ltd has ventured into a pact with Fazilka Cooperative Sugar Mills to set up a 15 MW co-generation power plant in the mill complex at Bodi Wala Pitha village, 15 km from Fazilka.

But then, such initiatives must be incorporated into the larger policy framework to have any true impact. “The Environment Ministry should urgently issue stern directions under the Environment Protection Act,” said Vikrant Tongad. And even as India goes all gung ho over achieving a Swachh Bharat, the cleanliness drive would be incomplete without clean air. Isn’t it!