Will there be budget allocation for critically polluted areas like Singrauli, Sonbhadra? ask researchers

NEW DELHI: Centre’s move to earmark Rs 1000 crores to tackle stubble burning in NCR states was welcomed by air quality experts, but they also say critically polluted areas like Singrauli, Ghaziabad or Vapi need urgent attention because air pollution is a regional issue. Ahead of the union budget on Thursday, a team of researchers who set up their own air quality monitoring network of about 12 sattions in Singrauli three months ago, shared their PM 2.5 (fine, respirable pollution particles) data with TOI to highlight the plight of people in the region.
Very often, several monitoring locations set up by researchers record peaks of 800 to 900 micrograms per cubic metres and a daily average of more than 250 micrograms per cubic metres, 4 time the national safe standard.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has only one monitoring station on the MP side of Singrauli but none on the Uttar Pradesh side or in Sonbhadra district which is also critically polluted. Following protests by Pradushan Mukti Vahini—a coalition of gram panchayats affected by air and water pollution, independent researchers along with Urban Sciences, a company specializing in air quality monitoring and IIT Kanpur set up a network of 12 air quality monitors in Sonbhadra and Singrauli.
Singrauli was the fourth most polluted industrial cluster in India in 2013, as per CPCB’s Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) score. The Singrauli region produces close to 22,000MW of coal-fired electricity heavy metals in its air and water resources. “It has been labelled as the country’s toxic hotspot for pollution, the heavy metal contamination caused from industrial emissions and effluents has resulted in debilitating health impacts, close to 269 villages are affected by severe pollution. We have to remember that air pollution is a regional issue. Depending on wind direction pollution from the Singrauli hotspot can impact Delhi and other cities in the Indo-Gangetic plain,” said Aishwarya Sudhir, an independent researcher who helped develop the monitoring network. In 2016, the environment ministry revised the process for calculating CEPI and dropped two important parameters in making CEPI assessment. The two parameters that were dropped off from the process are impact of pollution on health and environmental degradation. In 2016, it started surveying critically polluted areas again to rate them as per the new guidelines but those results are not out yet. Experts are wondering when will action plans to tackle pollution here will be implemented?
It’s even more important to budget for these critically polluted areas are because most thermal power plants are located here. Thermal power plants were to implement with new emission standards two years from the date of notifying these standards in December 2015. MoEFCC had informed the NGT they had moved the SC seeking an extension of the deadline for implementation of the standards. But experts said this delay is going to further aggravate the pollution problem. The cost of one online monitoring station as estimated by CPCB officials is roughly more than a crore and without having adequate budgets, it may be difficult to connect air quality data from pollution hotspots to the national air quality monitoring network. “While there have been budgets set aside this year for crop burning and monitoring across cities, one needs to understand that the crisis is not just limited to the cities. India has 43 clusters classified as critically polluted where, not just air but water and soil too are marred with toxic heavy metals and pollutants. The current policy interest or the budget allocations sadly do not reflect the need to tackle pollution in these areas,” added Sudhir.
Air pollution monitoring at five locations between January 11 to 25, 2018
Chillikadaan - Min - 33 Max - 911
Bijpur - Min - 43- Max - 830
Obra - Min 40 - Max- 378
Bari Dalla - Min 46 - Max - 450
Govindpur - Min - 38 - Max – 311