India's Air Pollution: Environmental Protection and Quarantine Essay

This essay examines the critical issue of air pollution in India, highlighting the various factors contributing to the problem, including industrial emissions, vehicle pollution, and the use of coal as a primary energy source. It discusses the severe health impacts of air pollution on vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly, and outlines the measures being taken by the Indian government and various cities to combat the challenge. These measures include empowering air quality monitoring networks, promoting electric vehicle adoption, controlling industrial emissions, and banning the burning of biomass and solid waste. The essay also references key studies and reports, including those from the World Health Organization, to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of air pollution in India and the efforts to mitigate its effects.

Running Head: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND QUARANTINE
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND QUARANTINE
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Air Pollution in India
Abstract
Pollution is the release of contaminants into the environment leading to extreme changes.
One of the worst problems that face humanity today is the pollution of the environment. In India,
there are several practices that are worsening adverse conditions. Such practices include
deforestation, urbanization, industrial pollution, land degradation, soil erosion and rapid
industrialization at the country's cities. The factors behind air pollution in India are refineries,
vehicles, industries, and thermal power plants (Debosree & Pratap, 2015).
Air pollution is the contamination of air by the human's release of toxic substances into the
air. Increasing economic growth and a highly increasing population are currently imposing a lot
of strain on the environment, natural resources and the infrastructure in India. World Health
Organization through their findings in 2014 showed that Delhi which is the capital city of India
is the world's most polluted city (Reddy & Janet, 2018).
There have been high rates of growth of motor vehicle practices in India which have been
significantly involved in rapid urban air pollution. This vehicle pollution contributes to 70% of
India's air pollution. The number of vehicles on the roads in the cities has exceeded 3.7 million
with a yearly mean increase of 8%. These motor vehicles are concentrated in the major cities led
by motorized two-wheeled vehicles which dominate the cities as they are affordable to millions
of residence (Kumari, Attri, Panis, & Gurjar, 2013). India is the leading country with the highest
number of motorized two-wheeled vehicles and has had an impact on the increasing health and
human welfare complications which are brought about by urban air pollution from transportation
activities. There is also adulteration of automotive diesel and gasoline with cheaper sources of
vehicle fuels in India. This increases emissions of toxic exhaust gases from vehicles thus
worsening air pollution in urban areas (Matthew & Kanok, 2009).
The negative effects of indoor air pollution in urban slums and rural areas has increased.
India depends largely on energy from coal as a source of energy, coal releases large amounts of
greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. Air pollution from plants that generate coal leads to about
70,000 premature deaths yearly in India. Other risks of air pollution on the health of humans

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include impaired breathing, cardiovascular disease, lung diseases and change in body's immune
defense system against harmful inhaled particles (Kushawaha, Pervez, Nair, & Pervez, 2013).
The most vulnerable group of people to air pollution effects are the old people and children
in society. To control air pollution in India, critical measures should be taken into account and
strict laws and regulations put in place to reduce contamination of the environmental air in the
big cities (Santu, et al., 2014).
Despite the adverse air pollution in Indian cities, some cities have put efforts to combat the
challenge. Actions taken include empowerment of networks that observe air, campaigning for
electric automobile adoption to minimize pollution from vehicles and control of toxic emissions
from industries (WHO, 2016). The government of India have also revised existing standards of
environment and generated new ways of control and prevention of environmental contaminants
from the country's industries. There is also an imposed ban on the burning of biomass, leaves and
city's solid wastes (Ravindra, Mahinder, Suman, & Pyne, 2015).

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References
Debosree, G., & Pratap, P. (2015). Air Pollution and India: Current Scenario. International
Journal of Current Research, 7(11), 22194-22196.
Kumari, R., Attri, A., Panis, L., & Gurjar, B. (2013). Emission estimates of Particulate Matter
and Heavy Metals from Mobile sources in Dehli(India). Environmental Science, 55(2),
127-142.
Kushawaha, S., Pervez, Y., Nair, S., & Pervez, S. (2013). Air Pollution Scenario in India: A
Review. All India Conference on Global Innovations in Chemical Science: Solving Real
World Problems. Chhatrapati Shivaji: Researchgate.
Matthew, B., & Kanok, B. (2009). Real World Carbon Dioxide Impacts of Traffic Congestion.
Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2058, 163-171.
Ravindra, K., Mahinder, K., Suman, M., & Pyne, S. (2015). Air Pollutiion in India: Bridging the
Gap between science and Polisy. Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste,
20(4) A4015003.
Reddy, K., & Janet, H. (2018). The impact of air pollution on deaths, disease burden, and life
expectancy across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The
Lancet Planetary Health, 3(1), E26-E39.
Santu, G., Kalpana, B., Krishnendu, M., Sankar, S., Naveen, P., Moumita, C., . . . Pyne, S.
(2014). Addressing Disease Burdens Attributable to Ambient Household Air Pollutionin
India: A Review to Scope Future Research Priorities for Carcinogenicity of Air Toxics.
Journal Of The Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics, 68(3), 391-405.
WHO. (2016). India takes steps to curb air pollution. Bulletin of the World Health Organization,
94(7), 481-556.