Mumbai’s rising pollution levels are estimated to account for 57 per cent of diagnosed lung cancer cases, the Maharashtra Assembly was informed on Tuesday, months after the Centre told Parliament that there was no conclusive data establishing a direct correlation between higher air quality index (AQI) levels and lung diseases.
"A cancer screening campaign conducted by the public health department detected 1,677 patients across Maharashtra. The findings indicated that rising pollution levels in Mumbai are contributing significantly to lung cancer, which accounts for 57 per cent of diagnosed cases,” Maharashtra health minister Prakash Abitkar said, as reported by PTI.
"A substantial number of patients with oral, cervical and breast cancers were also detected, with breast cancer cases among women showing an alarming trend," Abitkar said.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA from Dindoshi, Sunil Prabhu, had raised through a calling attention motion the issue of increasing cancer cases. Several MLAs, including Amin Patel, Sulabha Khodke, Babasaheb Deshmukh, Kishor Patil, Bhaskar Jadhav, Rajkumar Badole, Sameer Kunawar and Devayani Pharande, expressed concern over the rising number of cancer patients.
In December last year, Kirti Vardhan Singh, Union minister of state for environment, had in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha said: "There is no conclusive data which establishes a direct correlation between higher AQI levels and lung diseases."
Singh was responding to a question by BJP MP Laxmikant Bajpayee, who sought to know whether the central government was aware that studies and medical tests have confirmed that prolonged exposure to hazardous AQI levels in the Delhi-NCR is leading to lung fibrosis, an irreversible reduction in lung capacity.
On Friday morning, actress Saiyami Kher wrote a long post on X (formerly Twitter) bemoaning Mumbai’s worsening air quality.
“I started running a decade ago. Every morning, I’d find myself on Carter Road, chasing the ocean breeze. That wind is what made me fall in love with this city and running. I want to feel it again. And dystopian as it is, I put on a mask before lacing my shoes. It took me back to the pandemic. Except there’s no virus in the air endangering our life. The air itself could kill us. I never imagined a day when the very thing we breathe to survive would become a luxury,” she wrote.