Vehicular Pollution and it’s Impact

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Vehicular Pollution and it’s Impact

Journal Title: Indian Journal of Law and Human Behavior - Year 2018, Vol 4, Issue 2

Abstract

India’s most polluted cities are Kanpur, Varanasi, Patna, Gaya, Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. According to World Health Organization (WHO) global database (2016), Kanpur is the most polluted cityin the world, followed by Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, and Delhi. Many manufacturing industries, textile mills and laboratories are responsible for air pollution in Kanpur city. However, Delhi has the highest concentration of dust particles in the air i.e., 700 µg/m3, among metropolitan cities of the country. Ahmedabad has a number of cotton mills, which are primarily responsible for air pollution. The world’s most polluted fourth megacity is Mumbai. The ChamberTrombay region of Mumbai has a majority of industrial units, which has dust particle concentration and PM10 levels of 238µg/m3and 104 µg/m3in the atmosphere. Vehicular pollution is the second major contributor to air pollution after industries. According to a WHO report, 92% of world’s population breathe in polluted air as per the WHO global database as depicted in Air pollution is the greatest environmental risk, which affect health of human and other living creatures. Epidemiological evidences have suggested that cases of health problems due to air pollution are rapidly growing. Air pollution can be controlled and many cities have succeeded in their attempts to control air pollution. Countries like England, Singapore and China have initiated strict action in order to control air pollution due to vehicular transport, such as banning 15 year old vehicles for transportation purpose. In India, Delhi and Mumbai have adopted the same strategy to control vehicular air pollution due to the fact they are the worst case scenarios. Karnataka Government has also supported the scrapping policy of vehicles more than 15 years old. Diesel vehicles more than 15 years old, used for public transportation are banned in Bengaluru city while Karnataka Government has opposed the same ban in case of private vehicles. In spite of this, transportation agencies hardly adhere to this rule. Moreover, Bengaluru requires 8700 traffic police personnel in order to manage the increasing vehicular population. However, Karnataka Government has sanctioned only 3,594 posts in Bengaluru city, out of which only 3090 are filled and 504 posts are still vacant.The city still requires more than five thousand traffic police in order to manage vehicular population (CiSTUP, 2016; Dev A. 2016). In India, vehicular emissions are primarily controlled by establishing and enforcing vehicular emission norms, inspecting and maintaining systems (IMS), applying traffic and congestion management, use of cleaner fuels, awareness programs, and using public transport. Poor urban planning has led to increased requirement for private transport, which plays a significant role in increasing pollution due to vehicular emissions. Bengaluru city has a population of 11 million, which officially has seven million registered vehicles and has the second largest vehicle population after Delhi. The present vehicular population is 6.72 million in Bengaluru, majority of vehicular population is contributed by two wheelers that accounts for 4.65 million vehicles, i.e., 70% as compared to other transport vehicles such as 0.13 million taxis, 1.35 million private cars and the remaining 0.17 are autorickshaws (The Economic Times, 2017). Vehicular air pollution may lead to health issues, either due to short orlong term exposure to different pollutants such asparticulate matter, ozone, nitrogen oxide, and sulphur dioxide.

Authors and Affiliations

Najeebunnisa .

Keywords

When You can’t Breathe; “Nothing Else Matters “

EP ID EP572890
DOI 10.21088/ijlhb.2454.7107.4218.10
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