No conclusive data to link deaths with pollution: BJP MP – The Tribune

BJP MP Dr Laxmikant Bajpayee said the government had repeatedly stated in Parliament that there was no conclusive data available to establish a direct correlation between deaths and air pollution.

“The official stance remains that air pollution is one of the many aggravating or triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases,” he added.

In his response, Minister of State in the Environment Ministry Kirti Vardhan Singh, however, said, “Various studies have been conducted by academic and research institutes on the impact of air pollution. In 2025, the AQI has not reached severe plus level in Delhi even on a single day.”

He said that the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) had come up with stringent emission norms for various polluting activities in NCR, as compared to the national standards.

“The implementation of these directions is rigorously monitored through periodic progress reviews, which are followed by subsequent orders and directions from time to time. The commission has prepared a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), which provides a set of emergency response actions, depending on the severity of air pollution levels, to be implemented by identified agencies for minimising air pollution, a situation that generally persists in the Delhi-NCR during the peak winter months,” the minister said.

Singh said, in a review meeting on tackling air pollution in Delhi-NCR, it was agreed that the Delhi Government should utilise funds in an expeditious manner to implement air pollution mitigation measures such as awarding work for evacuation of construction dust and drainage silt, implementation of FASTag and ANPR cameras at all toll points for restriction of the entry of banned commercial vehicles, prepare integrated waste collection and management plan, identification and repair of stretches with potholes, end-to-end pavement of roads, increasing the green cover along Yamuna flood plains, time-bound action plan for plantation of 1 crore trees, installation of Online Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (OCEMS) and Air Pollution Control Devices (APCD) in all air polluting industries in a time- bound manner.