Poisoning Delhis Citizens

Building green cities is a matter of looking outwards as much as inwards. This is another lesson that Indias burgeoning capital Delhi is learning, much to its peril.

A book just released by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, Homicide by Pesticides, will force the people of Delhi to think upstream.

Delhis neighbouring state Haryana is witnessing both agricultural and industrial development. The state has been undergoing a major Green Revolution and in the process large quantities of pesticides (5,100 tonnes in 1995-96, i.e 1.5 kg per hectare) are being used. But less than 10-15 per cent of this is actually effective the rest dissipates into the environment. In 1995-96, the eight districts through which the Yamuna flows in the state, used 327,022 tonnes of chemical fertilisers. And to top it all, the various towns let out their own industrial and domestic effluents into the river. All these wastes accumulated into the river, which also happens to be Delhis only source of drinking water.

 

The question is does the drinking water of Delhi contain all these poisons? Yes, it does. Especially, because the city does not treat the raw water either for pesticide residues or for industrial contaminants. In fact, it does not even monitor these toxins in the raw water on a regular basis. No water treatment plant in India treats drinking water supplies for chemical contamination. The pre-industrial agenda, of treating only microbial contamination, still prevails.

By the time the river reaches Delhi, it is already a heady cocktail of poisons. A study conducted by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, detected DDT, aldrin and heptachlor in the Yamuna water before it reaches Delhi all in excess of recommended levels. Interestingly, many people believe that during the monsoons, when the river has more water, there is lower concentration of pesticides. On the contrary, the monsoon months are worse because then the surface runoff from the farms is the highest.

The strongest evidence to prove that things are going wrong comes from the water treatment plants themselves. For example, on January 2, 1997, two treatment plants in Delhi had to stop operations because the water had a strong odour of ammonia. Apparently, an industry upstream had dumped its effluents into a canal that empties into the Yamuna. But this is not a new phenomenon. Recently, an Indo-Dutch study noted that several times a year there is a sudden increase in the pollution levels of the water reaching the intake of the water works. As a result, the intakes have to be closed. However, these are examples of gross pollution. On the other hand, when pollutants are present in tiny quantities and there is no overt smell, they go straight into the drinking water, leading to chronic exposure to these deadly poisons.

On moving further along the Yamuna one finds that what Haryana does to Delhi, Delhi does the same to the cities downstream. After Delhi, the river literally turns into a sewer. The water supply agency of Agra simply dumps in large quantities of chlorine, but that hardly helps to reduce the chemical contaminants.

What does this mean for the health of the people? Nobody really knows the complete story. Scientists are just beginning to understand the ill-effects of chronic exposure to these chemicals. But one does know that such exposure means cancers, reproductive disorders, neurological disorders and deformed babies. It may also result in hormonal disorders, which may become visible over generations. In 1990, Delhi had the highest incidence of lifetime cancer compared to Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

Latest studies in a new science called environmental immunotoxicology are showing that chronic exposure to pesticides also depresses the immune system. People may die of diarrhoea or some other infectious disease but doctors will never suspect that pesticides are the real killer. In a country like India, where the infection load is high, this immunosuppression can be a very serious public health problem.

So what is the remedy? When it means something as basic as the environment, prevention is obviously the best policy. Even industrialised countries are discovering that treating polluted water to make it safe for drinking is very expensive. In fact, in the US and Germany they are finding it cheaper to persuade farmers and industries upstream to pollute less.

But can Delhi ask farmers in Haryana to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilisers at the risk of reducing food production? Its a difficult question. Of course, moving towards safer pesticides and integrated pest management could reduce the threat to public health. But only temporarily, as the overall consumption of agricultural chemicals is definitely going to increase.

Of course, good and effective regulation is needed to stop pollution. But regulations do not work in India because of widespread corruption. Pollution control equipment is expensive. And Indians are not willing to pay for anything, especially if it comes from the State. But rich Indians will shell out money for goodies like clean air and water as the crisis increases. Imagine 300 million urban Indians using bottled mineral water. Each person would use 2.5 litres of water per day for drinking and cooking purposes at say, Rs 5 per litre (bulk prices). This will give the bottled water industry a turnover of Rs 1,36,800 crore ($39 billion) per year. Thats more than eight times the size of the automobile industry today. It would seem that Indias economic growth is secure.