Taking steps to address public health crisis due to poor air quality, the Union health ministry has stepped up efforts to implement Dr K Srinath Reddy committee report. The committee in its report submitted to the government last year recommended multipronged approach to reduce the sources of air pollutants and improve health associated with deteriorated air quality.

The multipronged approach includes tackling ambient and household air pollution through public awareness, followed by policy intervention to reduce air pollution. The panel also suggested formation of a sub- committee to formulate training activities to be disseminated in health sector at national and state levels. It will come out with a framework for improving diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases including asthma and COPD as well as its prevention. The framework will be disseminated at national level via public and private doctors, said Dr Sundeep Salvi, director, Chest Research Foundation (CRF), who is also a member of advisory committee formed by the health ministry to look into implementation of Dr Reddy committee report.

India churns out around 350 pulmonologists every year and need is 3-4 times more. Considering the shortage of chest specialists in India, the committee suggested capacity building of general physicians treating respiratory disease patients through training programmes. It emphasized need to enhance respiratory component containing diagnosis and treatment protocol of the respiratory diseases in undergraduate medical courses, he said.

Recently WHO and ministry of health had held inter ministerial meeting in New Delhi which was attended by representatives from 7 ministries to discuss the implementation of Dr Reddy committee report. The meet was attended by representatives from ministries of petroleum, law, environment and forest, among others.

In 2014, Health Ministry had set up a 14-member steering committee under the chairmanship of Dr K Srinath Reddy, president of Public Health Foundation of India comprising of CRF representatives, representatives from Indian Institute of Economics, Indian Institute of Technology, WHO, ministry of health and family welfare, doctors from AIIMS, PGIMER, Chandigarh, to guide them on burden of air pollution and its effect on health.

The rapid growth of cities in India in recent years has resulted in the increase in air pollution level. The country's 13 cities fall in the list of world’s 20 most polluted cities.  According to WHO, Delhi had an average of 153 micrograms of the smallest particles, known as PM2.5s, per cubic metre in its air, higher than 6 micrograms per cubic metre considered as the international safe level. Air pollution is the most common cause of suffering in India.

The long term exposure to air pollution, according to Dr Salvi, leads to asthma, COPD, pneumonia, heart attack, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, lung cancer, Alzheimer disease, etc. Asthma is seen in about 5-10 per cent of the country's population. It is estimated that around 10 per cent of the population aged 40 years and above is suffering from COPD. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death among children under 5 years age group. One million children die of pneumonia worldwide. Around 60 per cent of people with heart attacks, strokes and hypertension are due to air pollution.

COPD and asthma both lead to a whopping Rs. 45,000 crore loss to Indian economy every year and a significant proportion of this is because of air pollution. Poor lung growth that occurs in children during their growing years, cripples them for life.