Air Quality across Uttar Pradesh equally bad as Delhi but may have more severe impacts in absense of robost air quality monitoring and action plans to combat it

Lucknow,14th December 2017| The Climate Agenda and Greenpeace India held a joint press conference at U.P. Press Clubon 14th December 2017 to highlight the Rising Air Pollution levels and Health crisis across Uttar Pradesh.

While Delhi has been in the headlines for one of the worst air pollution crisis in its history, Uttar Pradesh, the densely populated State of India bordering Delhi, is also witnessing hazardous air pollution levels. November monthly average PM2.5 levels across prominent cities where real time monitoring of air pollution levels is done such as Varanasi (183), Lucknow (233), Kanpur (306), Noida (244), Ghaziabad (336), Agra (190) and Moradabad (272) are constantly beyond sever levls at three to five times the prescribed limits by CPCB (60) and eight to 12 times the WHO (25) prescribed standards. The avrage PM2.5 levels during the same time across Delhi were monitored to be at 251 µg/m3.

“Hazardous pollution levels are not just restricted to Delhi. Entire north India is grappling with a virtual public health emergency. The problem is quite severe. And yet we are looking at Delhi’s pollution scenario alone by turning a blind eye to health of people living across other regions exposed to equally hazardous pollution levels. Uttar Pradesh is a classic case of this. There are other cities in the Indo-Gangetic plains spanning right from Punjab going all the way to UP and Bihar that are just as polluted as Delhi. This clearly depicts that air pollution is a regional issue and solution to this lies in acting in a coordinated and systematic way across regions rather than limiting it to a few city centers such as Delhi.,” said Sunil Dahiya, Senior Campaigner, Greenpeace India.

The PM2.5 levels across Uttar Pradeshare constantly in very poor category and have breached the sever category several time similar to Delhi over past two months. Contrary to Delhi where at certain intervals during past two months pollution watchdog and Governmnet at-least direted some actions to cutdown hazardous air pollution levelsunder GRAP, ranging from shutting down Badarpur thermal power plant to closure orders to industries, increasing parking fees for vehicles, banning of construction activities and open waste burning, Uttar Pradesh was breathing the toxic fumes day in day out without any strong ations to safeguard public health.

Ravi Sekhar from The Climate Agenda concuded by saying that, “The impact of air pollution on human health has been studied extensively. But to make air pollution an issue among masses and to tell hem what they are breathing in, we need to have a robost air quality monitoring network across the state. We have passed the stage of merely debating about air pollution, short term measures such as graded response action plan (GRAP) similar to Delhi should also be implemented in other northern cities across Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow has shown an intent to copy and implement the Delhi GRAP in Delhi but the actions plan needs to be precautionary rather than reactionary as well as it shouldn’t just be a piece of paper and should be implemented in it’s eternity. There is an urgent need to implement strict, time-bound action plan to address various sources of air pollution across the state. We need an ambitious and systematic clean air action plan with focused and precise targets, clear timelines and demonstrable accountability towards public health. This should address the root causes of the problem,”.

For further details please contact-
Ravi Sekhar, The Climate Agenda, 8127401252, lokavidya.singrauli@gmail.com
Sunil Dahiya, Senior Campaigner, Greenpeace India, 9013673250, sunil.dahiya@greenpeace.org