A Grim Reminder Of The Disaster Ahead

Anil Agarwal has a message for the upwardly-mobile Indian middle class: Wake up or be damned.

Environmental concerns have so far failed to agitate the middle class in India as they have in Europe or the US. We still do not have our own Green Party; we are not particular about boycotting products of environmental criminals, and in fact, we even let our environment minister get away with nothing less than changing the course of a river to benefit his personal property.

Our preoccupations are with pursuing better lifestyles with our credit-cards, Marutis, Cielos and cell-phones.

Life seems comfortable despite the nuisances and inconveniences. Alas, promising to jolt us out of our senses are two releases from the Centre for Science and Environment. Homicide by Pesticides and Slow Murder present a detailed and well-researched account of lethal forms of pollution of which most of us are blissfully ignorant.

 

Are we, for example, aware that most pesticides including DDT, Carbofuram and monocrotophos, banned by the UN and identified as hazardous by WHO, are being used extensively in India? Or that nearly 47,000 tonnes of pesticides restricted or banned in the West were used on Indian farms during 1994-95? According to CSE, in 1993-94, 1,200 tonnes of 2-4 D, a pesticide associated with Non-Hodgkins Lymphomas cancer was used on Indian fields. A 1993 Indian Council of Medical Research study showed that of the 2,205 milk samples from 12 states, hazardous levels of DDT were found in 74 per cent in Maharashtra and 51 per cent in Punjab. Even samples of canned milk formulations for infants were not free of DDT contamination. Clearly, the middle class is no longer safe. What are we doing about this? Are we at least now willing to wake up and demand greater accountability from the government and industry?

The CSE report on pesticides has considerable relevance to Delhites as it focuses on the Yamuna that flows through Haryana to Agra and beyond. About 70 per cent of Delhis water supply is met by the Yamuna, but according to CSE, none of the water treatment facilities are capable of removing pesticides. Adding to the problem is the release of industrial effluent.

The book chronicles a moving account of a personal tragedy: Himself a victim of Non-Hodgkins Lymphomas, Agarwal cites reports from the National Cancer Institute, US, which has held certain pesticides and herbicides responsible for this rare form of cancer. His suspicions that it was pesticide pollution that brought about his cancer could perhaps be well founded as the National Cancer Registry, Mumbai, has reported rising probability-levels of cancer in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi.

Slow Murder brings in a freshness of perspective as it takes a comprehensive look at the causes of vehicular pollution. This report says that even if all the two crore registered automobiles (1993 figures) were to proudly display the pollution under control stickers, the problem could not be overcome. In fact, vehicle owners are not to be blamed as much as manufacturers for their poor designs; the government for supply of poor quality fuel and lack of proper traffic management systems. Citing a World Bank study, The Cost of Inaction: Valuing the Economy-wide Cost of Environmental Degradation in India, the CSE estimates that health and environmental degradation cost the exchequer Rs 24,500 crore annually.

Slow Murder demolishes some fond beliefs that pollution control drives, catalytic convertors and unleaded fuel are keeping pollution levels under check. The truth is that unleaded fuel is manufactured in India with inappropriate technology and has high benzene content, a known carcinogen. Whereas, vehicles fitted with catalytic convertors have failed emission standards proving them ineffective. The report quotes Dr H B Mathur of IIT Delhi, who after a study observed: There are absolutely no regulatory mechanisms to test the quality of catalytic convertors that are being imported for Indian cars...For all we know, the car companies have been importing boxes in place of convertors.

At the heart of the matter, says Slow Murder are the two-stroke engines fitted in 65 per cent of Indian automobiles and which account for nearly 70 per cent of hazardous air pollution. These are high on hydrocarbons as a large part of the fuel remains unburned and escapes with the exhaust. However, despite a recommendation by then environment secretary, T N Seshan, in the 80s, two-stroke engines have not been phased out.

All this when we have an entire ministry dealing with environment and forests; central and state pollution control boards, the Water Pollution Act of 1974, Air Pollution Control Act of 1981 and the omnibus Environment Protection Act of 1986. These have clearly not helped much as these two volumes have.