Air

Vehicles and industries are mainly responsible for the deterioration of air quality in the state. Both create noise and emit air pollutants. Impact of vehicular emission and noise is widespread while that due to industrial emission is limited to areas around the industries. Advanced manufacturing techniques have considerably reduced both noise and emission and automobiles. Cleaner production process have emerged which reduce emissions from some industries. But the benefits are being offset by the rapid increase in the numbers of vehicles as well as industries. This growth is pronounced in urban areas. Air quality is therefore under increased stress around urban areas.

Even increasing use of fossil fuel in the transportation and industrial sectors is adversely affecting the air quality in Kerala. These driving forces are also responsible for the increase in ambient noise. The number of vehicles on the roads in Kerala has increased more than 20 times since 1975. kerala now has over 25lakh licenced vehicles on the road when the total length of the carriage way is only 21347 km. The vehicle population in the different districts of kerala is given on the table

The last decade has been rapid increase in the number and diversity of vehicles on the roads of Kerala. The number of vehicles increased 2000% from 119720 in 1975 to 2315372 in 2002. The corresponding increase in road length has been only 44% from 14870 km to 21347km. 40% of the vehicles in the state are registered in the three districts of Eranakulam, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhicode. Personal transport vehicles constitute 72% of the total vehicles in the state and 77% of these personal vehicles are scooters and motor cycles.

Vehicular emission and noise from this vehicles are sever in the three major cities of Kerala namely, Thruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhicode. Development of road infrastructure has not kept pace with rapid increase in number of vehicles. This has resulted in traffic congestion and the resultant increase in air quality deterioration.

Kerala's industrial growth has been very lower when compared to rest of India. The number of industries, which can be categorized as Large or Medium, is about 640. Most of these units are in the private sector and a majority of them are located at Kochi. There are about 2.5lakh SSI units, which are dispersed in the different districts of the state. Kerala state pollution control board brought nearly 600 large/medium scale industries and about 2500 SSI units under the consent regime of Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act. Majority of the smaller units, comprise of stone crusher. District wise list of air polluting industries in Kerala is given in table

Bulk of the major/medium industries and the maximum number of vehicles are in Ernakulam.This has an adverse impact of the ambient air quality of the area.Kanjikode in the palakkad is another instance where air quality degradation is observed due to the large number of electric furnace based industries being located there.Rest of the district have industries which mostly fall in the small or SSI category.Large and medium industries are sparse and are spread apart.Impact on air quality is therefore less or localized.

On the energy sector,Kerala has shifted its focus from hydel sources to fossil fuel for the generation of electicity.The new power plants use either naptha or diesel to generate electricity.791MW,out of a total generation of 2621 MW,is now generated from fossil fuels.70% of the additional power generation capacity created since 1997-98 consists of plants running on fossil fuel.During power shortage in summer the industries and commercial establishments depend on captive power plants or portable generators..This increased dependence on fossil fuel has increased the air pollution.

Urbanisation is occurring, in Kerala, at a slower pace than in other states. However Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode have been experiencing growth in urban spread. As per Census 2001, urban population of the state is 25.9% of the state's population. The percentages for Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode districts are 34,48 and 38 respectively. Unplanned growth has resulted in degradation of air quality due to crowding and traffic congestion. Air quality deterioration in urban areas is due to increased use of fossil fuels and personal transport. Improper collection and disposal of garbage is causing the waste to rot before it is removed. Scientific disposal facilities are inadequate even in the major cities. Garbage is mostly burned in the open causing air pollution. Vehicular movement and unrestrained use of loud speakers are mainly responsible for the noise in the urban areas.

Ambient air is monitored by Pollution Control Board for Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM), Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM), Sulphur Dioxide (SO 2 ) and Oxides of Nitrogen (NO X ) from stations located in industrial, residential and sensitive areas. Observations at these stations show that SPM and RSPM regularly exceed allowable limits. SO 2 and NO X levels are observed to be almost always within the prescribed limits. The measurements at the cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Eranakulam and Kozhikode are given in Table . Similarly the air quality at a commercial locality and in an industrial belt are presented in Table 6.6 and 6.7.

The observations show that SPM and RSPM levels exceed ambient air quality standard (200 and 100 µg/m 3 , 24 hour value) at all stations. SO 2 and NO X are observed to exceed the recommended 24 hour limit of 80 µg/m 3 in industrial areas.

1.Appropriate enforcement of laws to facilitate compliance with vehicular and industrial emission standards.

2.Adoption of cleaner and environment friendly fuels (like CNG in Delhi). Some examples are fuel cells for vehicles, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), battery driven vehicles etc.

3.Continual improvement in the existing fuel quality (eg. Introduction of unleaded petrol, low sulphur diesel). There is a need, in India, to enforce laws related to improved fuel quality especially for vehicles.

4.Improved engine design that is environment friendly (eg. Introduction of 4 stroke two wheelers) 5.Regular ambient and source air quality monitoring and surveillance including the pollutant emission levels of vehicles.

6.The industries using hydrocarbons should be prompted to recover the evaporative emissions these for further use. Such industries include dry cleaning operations, printing and publishing, petrol distribution, surface coating (metal can,wire, furniture etc.) etc.

7.The reduction in evaporative hydrocarbons from consumer products can be achieved only by replacing the commonly used solvents by less volatile solvents. Paints, varnishes, sprays, printing inks, aerosols are some of the products for which solvent replacement can be considered. eg., Indian paint industry is focusing its R&D on water based paints.

8.Putting up a ban on activities like open burning of refuse (instead compost the waste)

9.Creating mass awareness and training people on ways to reduce their usage of consumer goods like air fresheners, hair sprays, deodorants, nail polish remover, shaving creams etc.

10.Establishing more means of mass transit system (public vehicles) and promoting their use (eg. metro rail in Delhi) and also promoting car pooling.

11.Recognized and rewarding community groups working towards air pollution preventions and control.

12. The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, lay down various emission standards. National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) were adopted in 1982, and revised and notified in 1994 by the CPCB. These standards were revisited and notified for 12 pollutants (Table 1) in November 2009.

Table1: New National Ambient Air Quality standards (2009)

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