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 India's Sick City
Polluted, overcrowed Kanpur is a dark reminder of the country's enormous environmental challenges
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Living Dangerously
Rapid development and lax regulations have taken a heavy toll on Asia's environment
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Running Out of Breath—Page 2
What ails Kanpur ails cities like it throughout India. In 2004, a list of the 10 Indian cities with the highest levels of the air pollutant PM 10—particulate material with a diameter of less than 10 microns—did not include a single metropolis. All 10 were secondary urban centers like Kanpur (which came in fourth after Raipur, Jharia, and Jalandhar). India's biggest cities—New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras—are hardly havens of clean air and healthy living. But, to varying degrees, they seem to be waking up at last to the importance of curbing pollution. New Delhi, for example, has forced all of its auto-rickshaws and buses to switch from diesel to less-polluting compressed natural gas (CNG), which has led to an impressive drop in the levels of pollutants like carbon monoxide.
Away from these four megacities, and with nothing like the same level of media or political attention, lie the second-tier cities like Kanpur, where the environmental challenges are exacerbated by rapid population growth. Between 1991 and 2001, Kanpur's population rose by 32.5%, much faster than the national average of 21.3%. The city, already overcrowded, is adding another half a million people every five years at its current rate. Kanpur is the largest city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which was home to 166 million people in 2001, making it larger than most nations; by 2026 it's projected to have 250 million people. Uttar Pradesh, which has the nation's highest birthrate, is one of a handful of expanding northern states that are set to propel India's population to 1.45 billion people around 2030, when it will overtake China as the world's biggest country, according to the United Nations. That would mean 400 million new Indians—22% of them in Uttar Pradesh alone—in the first 30 years of this century. On the positive side, some analysts predict that India will reap a "demographic dividend" as millions more young Indians join the workforce. On the negative side, this additional population will add tremendously to the pressure on India's environment. Since giant metropolises like Bombay and Calcutta are nearing saturation, the second-tier cities will have to absorb much of this new population.
That's why, in so many ways, the real ticking bomb for India's environment is in places like Kanpur. Pollution in the smaller cities "is already horrific, but it's only going to get worse," says R.K. Pachauri, director general of the Energy and Resources Institute, an environmental think tank in New Delhi. "The local authorities are deplorable, and the problem is not getting highlighted at the national level. At some point, we'll be shocked into dealing with this pollution, and then the cost of cleaning up these cities will be much greater."
Outside the registration office of a government-run chest hospital in Kanpur, men sit with masks made from white handkerchiefs, while women pull their saris over their faces; they're trying to make sure that their germs don't spread to others. About 200 or 300 people a day come to this hospital with respiratory ailments. S.K. Katiyar, principal of Kanpur's GSVM Medical College, explains how the air pollution contributes, directly or indirectly, to a range of pulmonary-tract diseases in Kanpur. Some, like COPD, are directly linked to the pollution. Others, like tuberculosis—a disease that strikes many poor residents of Kanpur—are not caused by pollution, but may find it easier to attack people already weakened by pollution.
As he's talking, Katiyar suddenly slips into the darkness. The lights have gone out in the hospital. A moment later, they come back on, accompanied by a buzzing noise. The hospital's generators have kicked in. It's a familiar sound throughout the city. At night, Meston Road, a busy commercial street, is cacophonous with the rattling of large, diesel-powered generators that are turned on when Kanpur's lights go out, which happens almost daily; power cuts can last from half an hour to half a day. Maqbool Hassan, an optician, keeps a diesel generator outside his shop. "We're all contributing to the pollution," he says, speaking loudly so he can be heard above the din of the machine. "But what choice do we have?"
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