No direct correlation between toxic air, death: Govt

There is no direct correlation between toxic air and death of a person, the government today said in a clarification of an earlier statement made by it that around 80 people die of foul air in Delhi everyday.
"There is no methodology to establish direct correlation between toxic air and death of people. The impact of various pollutants on health is a result of complex mixture of pollutants. Also, there are several synergistic and addictive factors like heredity, socio-economic condition, medical health, habits, occupation etc. Contributing to it," Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said in written reply to Rajya Sabha.

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha on July 23, Javadekar had said polluted air, particularly the respirable particulate matter, is one of the several factors responsible for morbidity and premature deaths.
Stating that air pollution was a global problem, he said, "Some world's cities are non-compliant in respect of particulate matter while other cities are non-compliant for benzene, nitrogen oxides, Ozone etc."
He said analysis of ambient air quality data available for 42 cities during 2014 revealed that all are within the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of 50 ug/m3.
"As for NO2, out of 42 cities, nine cities including exceed NAAQS of 40ug/m3 standard. With respect to pm10, 39 out of 42 do not comply with the NAAQS of 60 ug/m3 standard," the minister said.