Express Focus -- POLLUTION -- by Indian Express

October 17, 2000

Smoke over the metropolis

Ahmedabad has been listed as India’s fourth most polluted metropolis, and given the number of vehicles on the roads, there’re few surprises in store. MEGHDOOT SHARON reports

Traffic snarls at almost every bend, autorickshaws that fuel their vehicles with kerosene, thousands of vehicles added to the thousands already on the roads, increasing levels of air pollution. That’s Ahmedabad for you, India’s fourth most polluted city.

Ahmedabad’s population has increased to an estimated five million over 1.3 million in 1961, and the metropolis accounts for over a quarter of Gujarat’s urban population. The city’s population is expected to cross the ten million mark by 2025. The rapid population growth has fuelled an even more rapid increase in vehicular population. In 1971, just 45,000 vehicles were registered in the city, while in 2000, the number of vehicles has gone up to over 12 lakh. By 2010, as many as 35 lakh vehicles are expected to be registered in the city alone. In addition, between four and five lakh vehicles registered outside enter the city on a daily basis.

Despite being well connected to national and state highways along with rail broad gauge and meter gauge rail lines, Ahmedabad’s road network is poor. The city corporation area is about 1,240 kilometres, of which about ten per cent is under transport. In AUDA areas, 560 kilometres have been developed for roads. Areas of the walled city in the eastern parts have narrow roads which are invariably encroached upon. The outer areas on the western side are better planned.

A study conducted by the Ahmedabad City Traffic police says that the stagnant road development system coupled with the rise in vehicular population has ensured that the average speed on some of the major roads in Ahmedabad has fallen to below ten kilometres per hour.

Given that 12 lakh vehicles ply on Ahmedabad’s roads every day, and assuming that one-third of them face a 15-minute delay, the loss is of 365 lakh hours and fuel worth Rs 100 crore per year. That’s about half of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s annual budget! These losses, in due time, are bound to grow in geometric proportions and by 2011, the annual fuel loss caused by congestion is likely to be around 600 crore.

The damage caused by the increasing numbers is most stark in the deterioration of air quality and its impact on health. A World Health Organisation report states that as many as 2,979 people die prematurely every year in Ahmedabad because of high air pollution.

The National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) also carried out a study recently, which attempted to find out the effect of lead on the health of children. A total of 633 students of two schools of Ahmedabad - one situated in a high traffic density area at Delhi Darwaja and the other 20 kilometres away on the Ahmedabad Gandhinagar Road - were randomly selected and checked for the presence of lead in their blood levels.

Wile 390 of the students had less than ten microgrammes per decilitre of lead, 189 had levels of lead between 10 and 15 microgrammes per decilitre. 36 students had lead levels between 15 and 19 and another 18 per cent had lead levels of over 20 microgrammes per decilitre.

‘‘More than 39 per cent of school children between the ages of 10 and 16 either need to be screened frequently and need medical or nutritional help as lead levels are higher,’’ says Dr D..J Parikh of the NIOH.

The chunk of polluters are the autorickshaws, which account for about 40 per cent of vehicular pollution in Ahmedabad despite numbering just about 50,000 of the total 12 lakh-odd vehicles. Since Ahmedabad has a shuttle system in most areas, rickshaw drivers try to rake in more money by running their vehicles on kerosene rather than petrol.

After being largely neglected for decades, there’s finally hope on the front of traffic management. Led by DCP (Traffic) Samiullah Ansari, the city traffic police are in the midst of a traffic awareness drive that began in August this year. Besides stopping and education drivers, cops have also been visiting schools, colleges and other institutions.

But there are other problems. The traffic police are understaffed and under-equipped. The traffic signal system is rudimentary, traffic signs are inadequate and at improper places. ‘‘But we have begun using sponsorship schemes and besides installing Rs 20 lakh worth of standard signage, 20 countdown clocks also have been received,’’ Ansari states.