India houses 25 of the most polluted cities in the world and yet, the manifestos of two of India's strongest political parties — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress — did not seem to throw much light on how to solve the crisis, which has also led to over 1.2 million early deaths in India.

In the BJP manifesto, the air pollution problem was mentioned in the lower end of the list of 75 items.

"Work towards completely eliminating crop residue burning to reduce air pollution." and "Work towards substantially reducing the current levels of air pollution."

In the Congress manifesto, the party said it recognised air pollution as a "national public health emergency", and yet, the mention of the crisis is towards the end of the manifesto.

This is what is mentioned, under the 49th section, titled 'Environment And Climate Change', out of the total 52 sections in the opposition's manifesto:

"Congress recognises that air pollution is a national public health emergency. We will significantly strengthen the National Clean Air Programme in order to urgently tackle the problem of pollution. All major sources of emission will be targetted, mitigated and reduced to acceptable levels. Sectoral emission standards will be set."

India has been grappling with immense air pollution problems, starting from deaths and which is now leading to an acute climate change. Skymet, last week, predicted that India will have a below-normal southwest monsoon season this year.

Jatin Singh, the managing director of Skymet, told CNBC-TV18 in an interview said that "below-normal monsoon is turning into the new normal now", raising concerns on the deteriorating climate change.

New Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region) cities, such as Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, are also among the top most polluted cities in the world. The main cause for the increase in the pollution level has been zeroed down to stubble burning, for which India spends $30 billion annually, as per a study.

Apart from stubble burning, vehicle emissions, construction, among others, lead to creating smog and thick-choking air, which can cause deaths.

The most polluted cities are based on the calculation of PM 2.5. PM 2.5 is the calculation of the fine particulate matter. PM 2.5 is a dominant air pollutant. The acceptable levels of PM 2.5 are the finer and dangerous particulate matter of 60µg/m3.

India has also signed up for the Paris Accord within the United Nations framework, in which nearly 200 nations have taken a vow to eradicate climate problems and deal with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance the issues, starting in the year 2020.

First Published:Apr 9, 2019 12:24 PM IST