By D N Singh
Air pollution is attributed to 11.65% of deaths globally. It is also one of the leading risk factors for disease burden. Death rates from air pollution are highest in low-to-middle income countries, with more than 100-fold differences in rates across the world.
Globally, air pollution alone contributes to 66.7 lakh deaths, according to the report, which updates a previous analysis from 2015.
Air pollution was responsible for 16.7 lakh deaths in India in 2019, or 17.8% of all deaths in the country that year. This is the largest number of air-pollution-related deaths of any country, according to a recent report on pollution and health published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
That is a major indication at how fatal can be the air pollution caused by several emissions from polluting units, dust pollution and other invisible toxicity.
Back home in this article we will try to project a case that is related to the health safety of hundreds of families in a major residential area called Kalinga Vihar, in Bhubaneswar, supposedly one of the largest such residential area.
It was learnt from the police sources that, adjacent to Kalinga Vihar, an Eco-city is in the offing. For which on a war footing some earth filling is on for which over 20 trucks are plying in the middle of the three sectors carrying some earth and stones to the designated spot somewhere.
The major issue is, day long the carriers unleash an incalculable amount of dust surging into the houses of the colony. The trucks ply on mere artery roads of the colonies not more than 12 to 15 ft wide, already damaged and the running of trucks have nearly bludgeoned the roads reducing them to be just tracks with potholes and so on.
The trucks are carrying a sticker which reads ‘BDA Duty’.
So it implies that Bhubaneswar Development Authority has the license to kill one existing Eco colony in order to build another.
The significant issue is the amount of pollution right from mornings till evening in this June solstice pumping in dust day long right in to the lungs.
Neither they are advised to take to some alternative route nor any official (perhaps from the BDA) ever care to visit.
The complaints have been lodged at every available forum but each one seems passing the buck to the other. BMC to the other urban bodies, no one has been left uninformed about it.
Developmental works is okay but it should not be at the cost of some peoples’ health, rummaging through the colonies with ruthless ease.
Where on earth such huge freight carriers are allowed to ply through residential colonies.
Perhaps, the BDA has the answer.
