A recent report by the World Health Organization has found fourteen Indian cities to be in the top 20 most polluted around the world. The BBC article stated in 2016, the northern city of Kanpur had the highest levels of PM2.5- “deadly air particles” that can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
In fact, the article noted 4.2 million deaths occurred globally as a direct result of air pollution. The World Health Organization has established a safe limit for the amount of PM2.5 particles in the air, in which Kanpur has exceeded 17x over. As a result, India may begin to experience a health epidemic, that not only affects their adult population, but also their youth and elderly.
An unhealthy generation of youth will result in a decrease in able working class citizens, which will result in a decrease in economic production for India in the future. Furthermore, it is important to note the reason for India’s health catastrophe is due to their textile, leather, and other production industries. Unless India is able to combat the amount of air pollution present with the use of systematic and strategic environmental plans, this will continue to be a vicious cycle for their population. Though India plans to take strides to improve their air quality, the article does not explicitly outline their goals.
India’s air quality is very similar to China’s at the turn of the 21st century, which highlights their economic growth as a country. In fact, due to the amount of industries India has, it is possible that within the next couple decades, India will be able to rival the economies of both China and the United States. As China has improved its air quality through use of renewable energy, it would serve India well to adapt a similar plan in order to combat their air quality.