Jairam Ramesh Cites 2 Million Air Pollution Deaths, Seeks Clean Air Act

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Monday, 9 November, that a FICCI-EY report linking nearly 2 million deaths in India in 2023 to air pollution should be a “wake-up call” for the Modi government. In a post on X, the Rajya Sabha MP said the Centre had repeatedly rejected such studies, in Parliament and outside, as not India-specific. The report puts air pollution behind about 22 per cent of all deaths in the country that year, according to the ANI and Tribune News Service reports.

Three Changes Congress Is Asking For

“Ease of doing business is fine, but ease of breathing is even more fundamental,” Ramesh wrote. He asked the government to tighten the national PM2.5 and ozone standards to match World Health Organization guidelines, to rebuild the National Clean Air Programme around fine particulate matter and ozone, and to pass a public-health-focused Clean Air Act to replace the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. He also urged the Centre to start work on the report’s 10-year national roadmap without delay.

These are Ramesh’s demands and his reading of the government’s past stand. No official reply from the Centre had been reported at the time of writing.

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What the FICCI-EY Paper Recommends

The paper, titled “Clean air, healthy India”, was reported by ANI on 5 November. It says air pollution was linked to more than 2 million deaths in India in 2023, and that Delhi’s own sources account for 36 per cent of its PM2.5 in winter and 26 per cent in summer. It asks for explicit PM2.5 targets in the clean air programme, success measured by lower exposure and better health outcomes, cross-state airshed management, tighter dust control at construction sites and stronger hospital surveillance before winter.

Ramesh made a similar argument on 6 November, when he called for an urgent revamp of the programme in a post citing CREA data.

Delhi Air Stays Near Severe

The statement came a day after Diwali, with Delhi’s air close to the “severe” band. IPB’s report on the post-Diwali AQI of 368 has the station-wise readings, and the Delhi air pollution page lists earlier coverage. Congress’s Pawan Khera also asked on Monday whether weak enforcement of Supreme Court restrictions on fireworks was a governance failure.

The FICCI-EY paper’s 10-year roadmap has no government timeline attached yet. The next sign will be whether the environment ministry responds or the clean air programme is reworked before the winter session of Parliament.

Source: Based on reporting by ANI, The Tribune and National Herald.

Image: PTI / The Tribune.