Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, Environmental pollution and degradation, Environmental Impact Assessment, Disaster and Disaster Management.

Key Phrases: Indoor Air Pollution, High Biomass Smoke Levels, Sick Building Syndrome, Acute Respiratory Illnesses in Children, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, National Family Health Survey, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, WAYU

Why in News?

• Burning of biomass in households is the single largest cause of air pollution deaths in India, followed by coal combustion and crop burning.
• The serious challenges posed by indoor air pollution have been largely ignored.
• People spend a large portion of their time in homes, where solid fuels are burnt in open stoves, leading to indoor concentration levels that probably account for a larger total exposure than outdoor sources in the region.

Key Highlights:

• Burning of biomass in households is a matter of huge concern since it results in deaths due to air pollution caused by them. Women, children, and the elderly are at the greatest risk from toxic emissions.
• The impact of household air pollution is on parity with any other major health risk in developing countries, including exposure to HIV, mosquitoes, or poluuted/dirty water.
• These air pollutants can be inorganic, organic, biological or even radioactive.
• The effect of these air pollutants on humans depends on their toxicity, concentration and exposure time and may vary from person to person.

What is Biomass?

• Biomass is the fuel developed from organic matter waste of living organisms like plant waste, animal waste, forest waste, and municipal wastes.

What are the impacts of indoor air pollution?

• There is growing scientific evidence to prove the critical health effects related to high biomass smoke levels.
• The most common effect is Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), in which people experience uncomfortable or acute health effects such as irritation of nose, eyes and throat, skin ailments, allergies and so on.
• Other effects include acute respiratory illnesses in children, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), adverse pregnancy outcomes, and lung cancer in women.
• The World Health Organization estimates that 4 million people die each year from pneumonia and other diseases caused by household air pollution.

What are the major sources of indoor air pollution in India?

• Firewood is the main source of fuel, used for cooking and heating in large parts of the country.
• Additionally, people use cow dung, crop residue, and charcoal for heating and cooking.
• Although many hundreds of separate chemical agents have been identified in biofuel smoke, the four most emphasised pollutants are
  • particulates,
  • carbon monoxide,
  • polycyclic organic matter, and
  • formaldehyde.
• Burning wood and other biomass fuels indoors increases the concentration of PM2.5 particles.
• According to the latest National Family Health Survey (2019-21) report
  • 56 per cent of the rural households still use solid wood, and
  • 11 per cent use grass, crop residue, or dung cake for cooking.
• Poor ventilation, cooking inside the living areas, asbestos roofing, and gaseous pollutants like formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds released from paints, etc., compound the challenge.

Various initiatives of the Government of India to combat indoor air pollution:

1. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana:
   • Recognising the public health hazards created by indoor air pollution, the government launched the scheme in 2016.
   • The provision of free LPG connection to BPL households under the scheme boosted the access to clean fuel among these households.
   • Usage of clean cooking fuel among rural households has increased from 24 percent during NFHS 4 to 43 percent during NFHS 5.
   • Biomass fuels still form the backbone of major cooking activities.
   • LPG is used for small and quicker cooking like the preparation of tea, heating cooked food, etc.
2. Neerdhur:
   • National Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) has developed ‘Neerdhur’, a novel multi-fuel domestic cooking stove.
3. WAYU (Wind Augmentation Purifying Unit):
   • WAYU is made by CSIR-NEERI.
   • It has filters for removing Particulate Matter along with activated carbon (charcoal) and UV lamps for removing poisonous gases.

What are the reasons for the ineffectiveness of welfare measures?

• Income loss due to the corona virus pandemic and gradual increase in LPG price has added more hurdles to the refilling of cylinders for subsequent rounds.
• The refill consumption remained pretty low (3.08 cylinders in the 12 months preceding September 2019) among the beneficiary households compared to the national average of 6.25 cylinders (14.2 kg).
• To encourage refills, the government recently announced a subsidy of ₹200 per cylinder to eligible households.
• Considering the high price of the cylinders (more than ₹1,000 each), a majority of poor households find it difficult to obtain refills.
• Investment in clean fuel or chimney/ventilation in the kitchen becomes a low-priority affair.

Way Forward:

1. Awareness creation: Repeated awareness creation on the benefits of clean cooking is to be embedded in the clean cooking programs.
2. Improving literacy rate: In the long run, enhancing the literacy rates and female workforce participation has to be linked with clean cooking programmes.
3. Ventilation in kitchens: In the short run, improving the ventilation in rural kitchens may be an option as a complete transition towards clean cooking fuels has a long journey to cover.
4. Improving Socio-demographic Index: Along with clean cooking programmes, a complete transition to clean fuels will also depend on the economic status of the households, the Socio-demographic index level of the country, and level of awareness on clean cooking fuels.

Conclusion:

• As India takes over the presidency of the G-20, it would be an ideal opportunity to bring developing world sensibility to the climate commitments.
• At present, much of the discourse on reducing carbon footprint emphasises vehicle emissions and fossil fuel use in the production of electricity, but much less attention is paid to the use of clean cooking fuel.
• Increasing the use of clean fuel will be a win-win situation for the environment as well as for women and families.
• Access to clean fuel increases the time available to women to participate in wage work and helps increase maternal time investments in child care and supervision of children’s education.

Source: The Hindu BL

Mains Question:

Q. Indoor pollution is as deadly as outdoor pollution. Elaborate and also examine various initiatives of government to tackle indoor air pollution.