A science fellow with the US Embassy, Srikanth S Nadadur has completed a three month long assignment in the country on air pollution to conclude that automobiles are a bane to Delhi and causing high levels of pollution. Although the position shall be fiercely contested by the automobiles lobby, but Nadadur contends that his understanding is that, the increasing emissions from vehicles are the biggest pollutants. He believes this is the reason why trucks have been ruled by the Supreme Court to be moved out of Delhi.
He believes that India requires a pollution regulatory agency such as US Environment Protection Agency. Nadadur has also commented that a group of scientists from the US and India is being made to plan for integrated health and air pollution research in India. Nadadur was sent to India after an agreement was reached for bilateral cooperation of researching on air pollution at the time of US President Barack Obama’s visit in January. The objective of his research was to make collaborative effort with the Indian Government to see is policy can be driven by science.
Nadadur is the programme director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in USA. He met scientists from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research or CSIR institutes such as Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Chest Research Foundation in Pune and IIT Delhi.
Notable doctors and scientists such as IIT professor Manju Mohan and AIIMS pulmonologist Randeep Guleria shall be a part of the consortium being formed.
The project shall cover exposure assessment, public health and training. Institutes in India have researched the impact on health by air pollution in a fragmented way without analysing its linkage with diseases. According to Nadadur, there have been a few basic researches with studies on animal models. However, population studies on it are required. There have been several studies on mortality because of air pollution but not on morbidity. There is much need to find out how air pollution has exacerbated existing health problems.