Travel in Delhi with windows of your car open, and many of you may get skin rashes and irritation in eyes. This is more prominent at busy intersections – say ITO, ISBT – and industrial areas – like Wazirpur, Motinagar. We always knew that Delhi air is polluted. How much was the question? We have some information about that now.

On Saturday, June 3, 2006, “Smoke Screen” – a report on ambient air quality in India by “Community Environment Monitoring (CEM)” – was released at Indian Social Institute in Delhi. The report has many firsts to its credit and raises some pertinent questions.

However, the report does not relate only to Delhi. It covers 21 samples from across India – Cuddalore, Mumbai, Eloor, Chennai, Ankleshwar, Mumbai, Hyderabad to name a few places. These samples were tested for 97 voltatile organic compounds (VOCs) and Sulphur compounds. This wide coverage of chemical tests make it the first study of its kind in India. (The project was supported by AID Austin and more recently by AID Bay Area along with many others.)

The samples were taken with the help of a community-based sampling device called the Bucket developed in collaboration with US EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency). Interestingly, not only the device, but the fact that community was directly involved in taking these samples is also a first of its kind in India.

Shweta Narayan – the coordinator of the CEM program – demonstrated the use of the bucket. It looks like any regular bucket at first glance. Some careful observation reveals what is called a “nose”. It is connected to a plastic bag that is called “lung” of the bucket. The sample is collected exactly like we breathe. A vaccum is created in the bucket with the help of a vacuum pump, and then when the inlet valve is opened, the nose “breathes” the air into the lung. This way the sample collected is the same as what any of us would breathe at the location. The bucket samples are not good for analyzing particulate matter (suspended in the air), or radiation or toxics like ammonia, dioxins and furans. The bucket and the special “tedlar” plastic lung are good for analyzing for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and sulphur-containing gases. These are categories of extremely toxic chemicals including benzene, chloroform, methyl mercaptan and hydrogen sulphide. Yes, and these are commonly found in residential air.

According to Community Environmental Monitoring, while facilities exist to analyse samples for a few VOCs or sulphur gases, no reliable lab in India tests for the 87 chemicals of concern that they test for. That is why the samples are sent to the United States to a USEPA-certified lab in California.

This would not have raised many eyebrows had the tests been all normal (all toxic components within permissible limits). However the toxicity revealed in “all” the samples underlines the need to have such testing facilities in India.

What is still more shocking is that though rapid industrialization over the past many years has added a large number of new chemicals – many of which are carcinogens – into Indian environment, we do not have “any” standards set for them in ambient air (outside – where ideally, no chemicals should be present). This conspicuous absence of standards has given a free rein to the industry and has been used by the State Pollution Control Boards as an excuse for not taking any legal action against polluters. SPCBs also have taken no initiative to set their own standards although the law expressly provides for this.

Madhumita Dutta and Nityanand Jayaraman pointed out that this is despite the fact that in 1999-2000, $1 million of a World Bank funded project for clean air was allocated to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to set up the required standards. It is not known how the money was spent.

Denny Larson of Global Community Monitor summarized the findings of the report and noted that community involvement is the first step in ensuring cleaner environment. That the community directly did this study is a big step for India. He related to the US Environment Policy Act that enables the citizens to enforce the “law” for clean environment if the enforcement agencies (like SPCBs or CPCB) fail.

Following the summary by Denny Larson, Sunita Narain of Centre for Science and Environment released the report. She correctly pointed out that in Indian scenario, with limited resource availability with the Pollution Control Boards, the most effective way to ensure clean air for citizens is to manage the inputs that can be used by an industry. Given the Indian scenario, it is an uphill task to implement standards (which presently don’t even exist) on the outputs.

Conventional pollution management will not help in addressing the issue of VOCs and sulphur gases in ambient air. For industrial sources, these toxic gases are released not merely from the smokestacks, but in larger quantities from fugitive sources – from leaking valves, storage tanks, hazardous waste dumping grounds and common effluent treatment plants.

Therefore, rather than the end-of-pipe regulation that is currently practiced, enforcement must move upstream to regulate what chemicals are used and how they are used. These concepts – toxic use reduction and clean production – are well-established internationally.

However, Narain cautioned the CEM team to be ready for thorough questioning and allegations. She advised the team of CEM and future community participants to be very accurate with their data and to be extremely objective about its validity. That “Smoke Screen” is exactly that – an objective report of toxicity levels at different locations – is very heartening.

She also emphasized that India can not afford to go the US way. The US EPA learnt through trial and error. Even today, the organization is subjected to huge political intervention. India has to leapfrog into a new era of clean air by developing a robust monitoring and implementation system/ agency.

She also emphasized the need to develop stronger relationship between communities and regulatory boards. These should be stronger than the relationships that industry forges with the regulatory authorities. It is only then that effective regulation can happen.

Occupational Health Specialist, Vijay Kanhere from Mumbai talked about the need to monitor air quality in the industrial premises also. He said that though many occupational diseases are observed, no action is taken to manage the situation. For example, 49% of coal-miners and 45% of jute workers suffer from respiratory problems. However, there is no special health plan/ guideline for these workers.

He also pointed out that though a huge population suffers from occupational health hazards, medical students in India are given only limited exposure to community health related issues. He again emphasized the urgent need to develop standards for air quality so as to minimize occupational diseases.

Jacob V Lazer of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) talked about the state of Industrial pollution in Eloor. He pointed out that the large number of industries in the area – including state owned companies like Indian Rare Earth (IRE) which causes radiation pollution and also private companies like Binani Zinc. These – more than 250 companies – release a cocktail of poisonous chemicals and radiation in the ambient air outside their premises and are a big health hazard to vulnerable fence-line population.

Shibu Nair of Thanal engaged the people with the concept of Waste management. He noted that incineration – however scientific it may be called/ designed – is another way of converting toxicity in solid waste to toxicity in air. He stressed on the ills in present methodology of waste management. As a solution to the problems with waste management, he introduced the concept of Zero Waste and resource management to minimize waste. The concept is being implemented in Kovalam – the famous beach village near Thiruvananthapuram – and the results are very encouraging. This has not only reduced waste generation but has also generated about 150 jobs over the past 3 years.

M. Nizamudeen of FEDCOT recounted his experience of community level monitoring and the perceptible change in people’s understanding of polluted air. While earlier people could only feel symptoms of pollution – like irritation in eyes etc. – now they can even identify the pollutant from the smell. And with such high concentration of pollutants in the air, one doesn’t even need to have accurate measurement of the amounts. When a human nose can identify a smell and therefore a pollutant, it is a proof enough of the existence of a pollutant and the need to control its leak into ambient air.

Chandrabhushan from CSE and Dr. Ajay Deshpande from Maharashtra State Pollution Control Board spoke about the need of a proactive regulatory agency.

Chandrabhushan pointed out that the total budget of all pollution control boards combined is about 50 times less than the budgetary allocation of US EPA alone (State EPAs have separate state allocations). The resource crunch is not only monetary and technical but also in terms of human resources. He proposed the need to “reinvent our regulatory mechanism” such that it includes community as a “stake-holder and also implementer”.

He also emphasized the importance of regulating the chemical inputs to Indian Industry and therefore regulation of the output emissions. These regulations should not only replace “old and obsolete” harmful chemicals with “newer, equally cheap and widely available” safer alternatives, but also define efficiency of processes by outlining the chemical consumption per unit of output based on international standards.

Dr. Deshpande shared with the audience that MSPCB has started engaging the community in monitoring environment by forming Local Area Environmental Committees (LAECs). He also told that air quality is being monitored at 55 locations in Maharashtra and reports from all monitoring points are available on MSPCB website. While he confessed that not much has been done to ensure that pollution reduces, he reiterated that assessing the situation is the first step in working to improve it.

He also accepted that there needs to be a change in focus of MSPCB and that air quality should also be monitored in industrial areas (and not just traffic hot-spots).

In the discussion that followed these talks, it was pointed out that workers of an industry are as much a part of the community as the fence-line community that is being talked about. Their health should also be given equal weightage.

A need for conducting epidemiological studies was felt. The fact that results from existing studies have not been effectively used to develop/ upgrade standards clearly underscores the urgent need to develop an efficient feedback mechanism to the regulatory bodies.

Smoke Screen is only a beginning. We have to develop a system that enables the community to not only monitor the air quality but also regulate polluters. To achieve the final vision of community based monitoring, we have to focus on the issues highlighted by the report and start working with the regulatory agencies to develop standards for these toxic pollutants and also continuously move towards a “input-based regulation” from the present “output regulation”. Most importantly, the role of communities and workers as environmental watchdogs should be affirmed and the State must actively encourage and protect workers and communities so that they can monitor violations by corporations without fear of violent reprisal by the polluters.

Communicated by Anuj Grover from AID-Delhi.