




































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 4 (1): 129–133, January 2021 

 
NOTES FROM THE FIELD  
 

The Impact of Exposure to Air Pollutants among 
Traffic Police in Bihar: An Excerpt from the Field 
 

Barun Kumar Thakur,  Tamali Chakraborty,  Ashok Kumar Ghosh  
 
1. AIR POLLUTION AND NATIONAL CLEAN AIR 
PROGRAMME IN INDIA 

In January 2019, the Government of India (GoI), after consulting with all 
the relevant stakeholders, launched the National Clean Air Programme 
(NCAP) to combat the increasing air pollution in India. The goal of this 
five-year programme is to reduce the concentration levels of particulate 
matter (PM), i.e., PM2.5 and PM10, by 20–30% before 2024, using 2017 as 
the base year (MoEFCC 2019). In reply to the question on NCAP, Prakash 
Javadekar, hon'ble minister of MoEFCC, responded in the Lok Sabha,  

NCAP is a pan India, medium-term five-year national-level strategy to tackle 
the increasing air pollution problem across the country. At present, 779 manual 
and 170 real-time air quality monitoring stations are installed across the country 
covering 339 cities in 29 states and 6 union territories with a budget of INR 300 
crore for two years. (MoEFCC 2019) 

Previous studies suggest that air pollution is the primary killer among 
pollutants. It impacts both morbidity and mortality, and the health and well-
being of the affected inhabitants, both directly and indirectly (Hajat et al. 

                                                           
 Department of Economics, FLAME University, Gat No. 1270, Lavale, Off. Pune 

Bangalore Highway, Pune 412115, India; barunsandilya@gmail.com.  

 Department of Economics and Business Environment, Indian Institute of Management 
Bodh Gaya, Uruvela, Prabandh Vihar, Bodh Gaya 824234, India; tamali.c@iimbg.ac.in. 

 Bihar Pollution Control Board, Parivesh Bhawan, Plot no. NS-B/2, Patliputra Industrial 
Area, Patliputra, Patna 800010, India; ashok.ghosh51@gmail.com. 

Copyright © Thakur, Chakraborty, Ghosh 2021. Released under Creative Commons 
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i1.112  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i1.112


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [130] 

2016; Health Effects Institute 2019). The Global Burden of Disease Report 
(2017) estimated that India has a population-weighted mean of 89.9µg/m3 
PM2.5 due to air pollution, which exceeds the 40 µg/m3 World Health 
Organization (WHO) standard. Further, the study estimated that air 
pollution in India is linked to one out of every eight deaths and reduces life 
expectancy by 1.7 years compared to regions with safe levels of pollution 
(Balakrishnan et al. 2019). The study also shows that states with an overall 
lower socio-demographic status suffer more. As previous studies suggest, 
air pollution–induced health issues and various socio-economic disparities 
are evident in exposed populations (Hajat et al. 2016; Jiao, Xu, and Liu 
2018). 

The NCAP’s overall objective is to undertake comprehensive mitigation 
actions for the prevention, control, and abatement of air pollution, and to 
augment the air quality monitoring network across the country by 
strengthening awareness and capacity. Air pollution leads to higher 
morbidity and mortality; it is among the top five risk factors of the latter 
globally (Health Effects Institute 2019). The present paper has two 
objectives: (a) to understand levels of awareness among traffic police to 
facilitate reducing their exposure; and (b) to see whether police can 
effectively implement a law to curb air pollution, in particular, by fining 
polluting vehicles on the road. We observed from the pilot study that health 
is a predominant factor that must be emphasized in awareness drives. 
Therefore, if an awareness programme can be implemented, it will reduce 
the negative impact of air pollution on human health and improve states’ 
socio-economic status in various ways. 

 

2. INSIGHTS FROM A SURVEY ADMINISTERED TO POLICE 
PERSONNEL 

From May 2019 to February 2020, we engaged in a project to assess the 
health costs of air pollution among traffic police personnel across four 
districts in Bihar, namely Patna, Muzaffarpur, Gaya, and Darbhanga. Three 
of these districts (Patna, Muzaffarpur, and Gaya) are also part of an 
ambitious move to implement the Clean Air Action Plan in 102 cities 
(MoEFCC 2019).  

Involving local stakeholders and multi-stakeholder views is essential to 
designing measures for reducing human-induced pollution. The purpose of 
the present study was to collect primary data from traffic police about the 
economic and health costs of air and vehicular pollution through a 
questionnaire-based survey conducted from May 2019 to February 2020. 
The questionnaire was divided into five sections: (a) demographic details; 



[131] Barun Kumar Thakur, Tamali Chakraborty, Ashok Kumar Ghosh 

(b) air pollution–related details; (c) the number of days of illness; (d) cost of 
hospitalization; and (e) other details.  

Surprisingly, we found that out of 65 respondents, only 11 were aware of 
the NCAP and its initiative to tackle air pollution. Awareness can help 
people take appropriate steps to avert or mitigate negative externalities due 
to pollutants (Thakur and Gupta 2019). Only 16% of respondents agreed 
that such an awareness drive against air pollution in the past year was 
useful, and among those, only five (8% of all respondents) revealed 
knowledge of any community action or initiative to curb air pollution. 

We asked three main questions:  

(1) What would you do to stop air pollution?  

(2) What should the government do to stop air pollution?  

(3) Do you have any other suggestions for how to reduce or stop air 
pollution?  

On analysing the responses, we found that the majority fell into the 
following five categories:  

(1) manage traffic and fine any polluting vehicle;  

(2) monitor and stop old government vehicles, especially municipal 
corporation ones;  

(3) encourage the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) or other 
environment-friendly vehicles;  

(4) take concrete steps against testing centres responsible for providing fake 
“pollution-free” certificates to vehicles; and  

(5) stop generator use in households.  

There were mixed responses to the question of how traffic police or the 
government can help reduce or stop air pollution. One respondent 
suggested that the yellow buses, which corporations use, be strictly banned 
(as they contribute to roughly 70% of the emissions). Additionally, there 
should be a reduction in the waste that corporations generate. Five main 
suggestions emerged from the field survey:  

(1) there should be strict provisions for checking the vehicular pollution of 
private and government vehicles;  

(2) more trees must be planted wherever possible;  

(3) vehicles which are more than 10 years old should be banned and 
vehicles violating these norms fined;  



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [132] 

(4) more awareness drives must be conducted at continuous intervals to 
engage various stakeholders;  

(5) precise mechanisms should be used to effectively combat air pollution. 

After interviewing the police personnel, we found that health issues such as 
blood pressure, asthma, coughing in the morning, and chest pain 
accompanied by coughing were prevalent among the respondents. Around 
13% of the respondents whom we surveyed had skin infections, followed 
by fever (11%), stress (9%), eye irritation (7%), and other health issues. 
Interestingly, around 30% of respondents did not wear a mask while on 
duty. 

 

3. DATA ISSUES AND FURTHER INSIGHTS 

Besides our survey and discussions with various government organizations 
and individual stakeholders in Bihar, getting data on air pollution was 
challenging. The survey data, including various ambient air pollution 
parameters, helped validate the respondents’ perception-based responses. If 
there were more air pollution monitoring stations with various ambient 
parameters, health effects could be better correlated. At the time of our 
survey, there were only three stations in the entire state of Bihar and, to our 
surprise, the collected data were not being analysed.  

We found that the health effects among traffic personnel were greater at 
higher pollution levels. Therefore, there was a positive correlation between 
crowded signals with more pollution and ill health. We used sensors to 
monitor the air quality at two different traffic points, but it would have 
been interesting to establish a correlation between air pollution and health 
impacts among traffic police personnel using more air pollution data. 

 

4. CONCLUSIONS 

While conducting the survey, we interacted with traffic police personnel to 
understand their exposure to vehicular air pollution and their awareness of 
and concerns associated with the NCAP. While traffic personnel knew 
about air pollution, most were unaware of the NCAP. Despite data 
constraints, this survey shows that if the government uses awareness drives 
to educate people and implementing agencies, the adverse health impacts 
and socio-economic issues associated with air pollution can be drastically 
reduced. Finally, the government should make a strict policy to curb 
vehicular pollution by imposing fines on polluting vehicles. 



[133] Barun Kumar Thakur, Tamali Chakraborty, Ashok Kumar Ghosh 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

The research was funded by FLAME University, Pune. We are thankful to 
the Bihar State Pollution Control Board, Patna, and the superintendents of 
police of the Patna (traffic), Gaya, and Muzaffarpur districts of Bihar for 
helping us interview traffic police personnel despite their busy schedules.   

 

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