Pollution Shortens Lifespan of Delhi Residents by Over 10 Years
Travel Advisory for New Delhi, India: As pollution levels remain dangerously high throughout the year in India, all travelers including business executives, tourists, and diplomats need to exercise utmost caution while planning to visit India – particularly India’s capital New Delhi.
Moreover, companies and investors must not come to Delhi for setting up their businesses or for trade conferences as pollution can harm them as well as their families. Foreigners who have come to stay in India for their work, should preferably go back to their countries. Or, at least, they should not keep their children with them because Delhi’s pollution is very harmful for children.
Delhi Government, the Indian Government, and the pollution-control agencies are not taking proper steps to control pollution because most politicians and bureaucrats in India are uneducated and careless.
[ Air Pollution May Cause Mass Exodus from Delhi ]
World’s top magazine The Economist reports that “even by the standards of poor countries, India is alarmingly filthy.” The magazine says that Delhi’s deadly air is part of a wider crisis, adding that in WHO’s (World Health Organization) rankings of air pollution, Indian cities claim 14 of the top 15 spots.
Moreover, in the 2018 Environmental Performance Index – released by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities in collaboration with the World Economic Forum – India falls at a poor rank of 177 in a list of 180 countries. Worse, India’s Environmental Health rank is 180 and Air Quality rank is 178.
[ Environment Protection: Join the Green Group of Delhi ]
An interactive tool on the Breathe Life 2030 website shows a Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 level of 143 micrograms per cubic metre (annual mean) in India’s capital New Delhi. This is over 14 times over the WHO safe level of 10 µg/m3.
Simply put, the people of Delhi are inhaling poison from the air. Air pollution levels get so severe that many residents regularly wear masks and authorities resort to emergency measures such as banning construction and shutting schools. But most Indians ignore government orders and pollution activities continue.
According to The Economist, this polluted environment does not just make life unpleasant for a lot of Indians, but it kills them. Recent estimates put the annual death toll from breathing PM 2.5 alone at 1.2 million to 2.2 million a year. The lifespan of Delhi-dwellers is shortened by more than ten years, says the University of Chicago.
