Pollution shaves years off life span
COLOMBO: More than 50% of Indians breathe air so polluted that each loses roughly 3.2 years of life, according to a recent study by researchers from the University of Chicago, Yale and Harvard.
Altogether, 660 million Indians could lose 2.1 billion years owing to contaminated air, researchers found. “[It] demonstrates that air pollution retards growth by causing people to die prematurely,” said Michael Greenstone, co-author and director of the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
A World Health Organisation study last year found that 13 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in India, with New Delhi hosting the worst air globally. The government’s plan to double coal use in the next five years to spur economic growth may even cut agricultural production by a third. After decades of growth, wheat and rice yields are now levelling off and even declining in some states.
India should improve air quality monitoring, institute a system of civil monetary penalties for excessive polluters and adopt a trading system for pollution rights, said the study’s authors. While in the past Indians have seemed largely oblivious to pollution woes, a campaign by local media in 2014 may be changing that.