Air Pollution Claims 620,000 Lives in India: Study

Further, in 2010 outdoor air pollution ranked fifth in mortality and seventh in the health burden in India, where it caused loss of 17.7 million healthy years of life.

Kalpana Balakrishnan, director, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), who contributed to the research in India said “National level policy makers have to see that density of intervention needs to be substantially increased to get better health outcomes,” as reported by livemint.com.

On the other hand, opposing to existing perceptions, Balakrishnan pointed out that air pollution in rural India was worse than air pollution in urban India, where the problem has been compounded by exhaust fumes from a rising vehicular population.

The report also revealed that indoor air pollution leads to an increase in outdoor air pollution. Every year one million deaths in India can be attributed to indoor air pollution, noting that according to the 2011 census, 67 percent of India’s population still used solid fuel, said Balakrishnan.

As per recent data, globally air pollution-related deaths have increased by 300 percent since 2000 and almost 65 percent of these deaths occur in Asia. There has been an exceptional increase of 300 percent in diseases attributed to air pollution.

(With PTI inputs)

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