NEERI pegs economic damage cost at Rs 3,737 cr due to air, Nag river pollution
   Date :09-Dec-2019

NEERI pegs economic damag
 The polluted Nag river. 
 
Staff Reporter :
 
There is general concern over rising air and water pollution. The city of Nagpur is no exception. When it comes to calculating the damage caused due to pollution in monetary terms, no specific data was available... so far. Now, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) has developed a framework for environmental damage cost assessment. A case study in the framework document released recently pegs the economic damage cost ‘incurred due to air pollution and pollutant loading in river Nag’ at a whopping Rs 3,737 crore. The document titled ‘Framework for Environmental Damage Cost Assessment with Examples: Special Report on Monetizing Damages’ is prepared by NEERI. Dr Rakesh Kumar, Director of NEERI, was the mentor and task co-ordinator for the said report.
 
Two NEERI scientists namely Hemant Bherwani and Ankit Gupta have authored it. The research team comprised Moorthy Nair and Himani Sonwane, both Project Fellows, NEERI. In the foreword of the report, Dr Rakesh Kumar has stated that the report will act as a ‘baseline tool, providing a platform to assess damage done to the environment in monetary terms’. He has expected it to significantly contribute to policy-making, environmental regulations, and implementation. Among other chapters, the report has a chapter on case study, which provides an assessment of environmental damage cost due to air and water pollution for Nagpur city. As per the assessment, the total economic damage incurred due to air pollution and pollutant loading in Nag river is estimated to be a whopping Rs 3,737 crore! Of this, the monetary valuation of air pollution health impacts in Nagpur city is estimated to be Rs 3,622 crore, with Particulate Matter-10 or PM10 being the pollutant.
 
The remaining is the cost of environmental damage due to pollutant loading in Nag river. While assessing the damage due to air pollution at Rs 3,622 crore, NEERI has considered World Health Organisation’s global relative risk for health applied for estimation of burden of disease and six per cent average inflation rate for India. It has carried out valuation for damage caused due to only PM10 for the year 2018 as ‘it was breaching the standard’. The morbidity has been valued by using the estimates of cost of treatment and related expenses under the heading of cost of illness and mortality using value of statistical life. NEERI has also considered disability cost due to unfavourable health condition. The overall valuation is based on per capita income of individuals in the city.
 
The assessment considers cardiovascular and respiratory mortality as well as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Similarly, NEERI’s assessment of environmental damage cost due to pollutant loading in Nag river predicts annual economic damage cost for the year 2018. The assessment has been done considering two parameters -- biological oxygen demand (BOD) and fecal coliform concentration. Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) standards in terms of million litres per day peg BOD at 3 mg/litre. However, in case of Nag river, BOD was found to be 112 mg/l, which was a breach of CPCB value by 109 mg/l. The environmental damage cost in case of BOD alone is estimated to be Rs 99.19 crore. In case of fecal foliform concentration, CPCB standards are 5x1000 MPN/100 ml.
 
But, in case of Nag river it was found to be 16x100000 MPN/100 ml. MPN refers to Most Probable Number, a method used to estimate concentration of viable micro-organisms in a sample. The environmental damage cost due to fecal coliform is assessed to be Rs 16.12 crore. NEERI has stated that the main purpose of the report is to ‘mainstream’ the concept of environment damage cost assessment ‘to bring awareness’ among policy-makers, industrialists and environmentalists. At the same time, it has underlined the need for having country-specific Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimation to support the final damage cost assessment. SCC establishes a general relation between CO2 equivalent emissions and monetary damage. Also, NEERI has called for development of country-specific database for the damage related data to enable the methodologies prescribed in the framework document to ‘pave the way for India’.