New Delhi, June 28, (LAB) The National Human Rights Commission, (NHRC) on June 24, took suo motu cognizance of media reports quoting an external survey that air pollution is a great threat to human health in India, reducing the life expectancy and issued notices to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and asked them to file the report in this regard within four weeks.
The commission also directed the respondents to file a report on the status of the National Clean Air Program launched in 2019. The Commission said that it expected that all State authorities will also take up the issue with utmost sincerity in a time-bound manner.
The Commission observed that the contents of the media reports, if true, raise a serious issue of the Right to Life. According to the media reports, carried out on June 15, 2022, the residents in Delhi would gain 10 years of life expectancy on average if the annual average PM 2.5 levels did not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter, as per WHO standards. The report has further categorized U.P., Bihar, Haryana, and Tripura among the top polluted the Indian States./ LAB/SNG/