Press Release: Better Air Quality = Better Cities

27 June 2012, New Delhi – Air pollution is a serious health issue, and according to the World Health Organization, particulate matter alone kills 3.1 million people annually worldwide. This is higher than the average number of people killed in traffic accidents annually.

“With the current trend of urbanization and motorization, we need to empower cities towards a sustainable air quality management program - with more stringent standards and more powerful pollution control boards,” says Parthaa Bosu, CAI-Asia India Representative. “People flock to cities and this trend worsens air pollution posing great health risks to the population.”

About 340 million people in India live in cities and by 2030 this is expected to reach 590 million. India’s motorization index is currently about a tenth of developed regions like the US and Europe but is climbing rapidly. Estimates have shown that Delhi is adding 300,000 cars a year. For India as a whole, research shows that the vehicle population will more than double between 2005 and 2015, from 50 million to 125 million in 10 years. The resulting air pollutants and GHG emissions from these vehicles contribute to the air pollution problem in most urban cities in India.

To advocate for better air quality for cities, a series of workshops were conducted in the cities of Pune, Chennai, Indore, Ahmedabad and Delhi. The sessions covered all the components of integrated air quality management necessary to analyse and manage the air pollution in the cities, including tools to develop an emissions inventory and available management options to command and control air pollution in the cities.

These workshops are part of the Air Quality and Climate Change Program of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia). Supported by the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation and in partnership with UrbanEmissions.info, CAI-Asia moves the agenda of air quality management forward by sharing the results from the UrbanEmissions.info’s study - Urban AirPollution & Co-benefits Analysis in Six Indian Cities – Pune, Chennai,Indore, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Rajkot. The city workshops included hands-on training for the SIM-air family of tools.

Dr. Sarath Guttikunda from UrbanEmissions.Info states, “the program is not meant to advocate a model, but to spread the concept of knowledge management for air quality management in the cities. This is a much needed exercise, where the required information in scattered and we need programs to collate that for an informed decision making.”

Mr. Rajesh Rangarajan, Senior Researcher from Institute for Financial Management and Research, Chennai, India, quotes, “we are using the results from the UrbanEmissions.info’s study in Chennai to advise the Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board on the placement of new air quality monitoring stations, based on the pollution hotspots and influencing emission sources like the brick kilns and landfills”.

A National Air Quality Management Workshop held in June 21 gathered members of government, civil society, and private sector under the banner for better air quality for cities. Showing their support for the air quality advocacy, member secretaries - Shri J.S. Kamyotra and Naini Jaiseelan noted the importance of air quality as a priority issue in India. Case studies by representatives from Chennai, Indore, and Pimpri Chinchwad (new Pune) were also presented.

In his keynote address, Shri J.S. Kamyotra, Member Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board, highlighted the need for improving monitoring, emission inventories, dispersion modelling, and their application for action plans for cities. Together with research organizations in India, source apportionment studies were conducted by CPCB and MoEF for the period 2006 to 2010.

The city representatives conceded more is needed to be done and urged for the different stakeholders from government, civil society, and the academe work together for urban development. The outcome of the workshop provided a list of recommendations for the pollution control boards and on the wealth of potential partnerships and support available from other stakeholders in India.