Air pollution is measured mainly by the number of suspended particulate matter (SPM) and respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) in the atmosphere. Some years back, officials of the Pollution Control Board (PCB) in the north Indian city of Kanpur got digital display boards installed at prominent squares that would display four figures — permissible levels of SPM and RSPM in the air, and their actual levels in the air. The aim was to make the people of Kanpur, the biggest city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, aware about increasing air pollution in the city.
However, the display boards needed regular maintenance, and soon went out of order due to lack of upkeep. They were never repaired. The PCB officials had realised that the display boards, instead of making people aware, were instead alarming them, and thought it was better to have people ignorant than panicky.
No wonder, then, that Kanpur, 400 kilometres east of the Indian capital New Delhi, has a place in World Health Organisation’s list of the ten most polluted cities in the world.
According to the list, Kanpur is the second most polluted city in India, after Ludhiana, a city in the western state of Punjab.
The digital display boards have long been forgotten, but the level of pollution in the air remains critical.
“The permissible level of SPM in the air is 100 micrograms per cubic metre,” said Radhey Shyam, who heads the Kanpur office of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB). He becomes silent when asked about the actual level of SPM in the air.
After some time, he haltingly says, “It is more than double on most days.”
It is the same with RSPM. Its permissible limit is 100 micrograms per cubic metre of air but its level is double or more on any given day.
From Shyam’s office, located next to the Panki Thermal Power Plant, which consumes thousands of tonnes of coal every day to provide electricity to the city, one can see great clouds of thick, white smoke billowing from the chimneys of the power plant.
“That smoke is not polluting the air,” Shyam said. “It is filtered.”
“This smoke was a problem earlier. Now there are filters at the mouth of the chimneys. We warned the power-plant officials that strict action would be taken, and they spent Rs80 million [Dh5.2 million] to get the filters installed,” he added.
Chimneys emitting dense smoke were once a common sight in Kanpur. The city was earlier a major industrial hub, but now it is nothing more than a graveyard of factories.
“Industrial pollution is no more an issue here. There are other reasons why Kanpur is one of the most polluted cities in the world, such as an increasing number of vehicles and bad road conditions,” Shyam said.
Kanpur, despite being a major city in India, is yet to have an efficient and ecofriendly public-transport system. People here either use their private vehicles or depend on “tempos”, the city’s shared taxis.
According to the regional transport office (RTO), there are about 400,000 cars and 1 million two-wheelers in Kanpur.
“About 250 vehicles are registered every day with the transport office here. The figures are quite high, considering the population, which is just 4 million,” said Mohan Singh, a transport official in the city. He said the number of motored vehicles has doubled in the past five years.
“Earlier cars were very rare here. I knew only two families who owned cars. Today I think every person I know has a car,” said Cicil Luther, 55, a resident of Kanpur.
“Land has become scarce and costly. The city has become too congested. People have encroached upon roads and made them narrower. Traffic jams are common, and vehicles all but crawl on the road. Moreover, people are felling trees and occupying every inch of space available,” Shyam said.
Kanpur spreads over 1,640 square kilometres.
“Ideally, at least 30 per cent of a city should be green. But here only .5 per cent of the city’s area is green,” Shyam said.
“Most of the roads in Kanpur have disintegrated, and vehicles raise clouds of dust as they trundle along, increasing levels of SPM and RSPM,” he added.
Kanpur also faces power outage for several hours a day. “Generators run on diesel and are also a concern. Diesel-run machines emit sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, two major pollutants,” Shyam said.
Overgrown and straggling with offices and shops, Fazal Gunj is one of the most polluted neighbourhoods of Kanpur. A densely populated and treeless area, its roads remain choked most of the day. As soon as there is power outage, the area starts reverberating with the noise of generators.
“I feel suffocated,” says Rajvir Singh, a shopowner in the neighbourhood.
Scientists at PCB also found that improper disposal of domestic waste was contributing to pollution. “The city produces 1,500 tonnes of domestic waste every day, but the municipal corporation is able to dispose of only half of it in an ecofriendly way. The rest is burnt and contributes majorly to air pollution,” Shyam said.
The increased pollution is taking its toll on the lives of the people here. Kanpur is now known as the city of sneezing, wheezing and coughing people.
The clinic of Dr Sudhir Chaudhry, head of the Department of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases in Kanpur Medical College, is overflowing with patients.
“Increasing air pollution has become a major health concern. The number of patients with respiratory ailments is multiplying. Due to constant exposure to pollutants, more people are now suffering from lung cancer, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” he said. “Earlier people suffered from cough and cold only during winter. Now you find people coughing throughout the year — and that is because of the pollution. But people do not realise that.”
Dr Sachidanand Tiwari, who teaches at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) — a chain of elite engineering institutes — said: “People need to restrict the use of motorised vehicles. They should use non-motorised vehicles such as cycle-rickshaws and bicycles more.”
“Trees should be planted along roads so that the level of dust can be kept in check,” he added.
Dr Tiwari, along with the scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation, has carried out a detailed analysis of the air in Kanpur.
Scientists at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an environmental pressure group, have suggested that to check emissions, vehicles that run on petrol or diesel should be replaced with vehicles that use non-polluting compressed natural gas as fuel.
Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of CSE, also suggests introduction of an environment-friendly public-transport system in the city. She also says people should be encouraged to walk, and for this, a pedestrian-friendly system needs to be put in place.
Though Kanpur’s problems can be solved, some people are not hopeful that the situation will improve.
“The middle class in Kanpur, like that of the rest of India, is booming. Today everybody wants to own a car. We Indians have egos that are directly proportional to the size of their car,” Luther said, “A person who owns an SUV will feel ashamed to travel in a bus.”
Luther commutes on his two-wheeler and gets stuck in traffic nearly every day.
“April 24 was observed as No-Vehicle Day in Kanpur by some social organisations. But nothing changed, I was still stranded in traffic,” he said.
Rohit Ghosh is a writer based in Kanpur, India.
