Delhi's Population Is Gradually Decreasing Because Pollution And Crime Is Making People Leave
Population levels in Delhi are finally declining after decades as people are leaving the city due to dangerous levels of pollution and high crime levels the Delhi High Court said today. A public-interest litigation PIL was raised by the court after the Nirbhaya gang-rape incident of December 16 2012 which angered the entire city. The court has constantly been giving directions to the authorities to make the city safer and cleaner.
Population levels in Delhi are finally declining after decades as people are leaving the city due to dangerous levels of pollution and high crime levels, the Delhi High Court said today. It also said that authorities seem unable to control it.
Reuters
A public-interest litigation (PIL) was raised by the court after the Nirbhaya gang-rape incident of December 16, 2012, which angered the entire city. Since then the court has constantly been giving directions to the authorities to make the city safer and cleaner. A part of the bench of justices, Badar Durrez Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar said, "People are leaving Delhi because of pollution and crime rate which you (authorities) are not willing to control."
They added that the seemingly declining population is mainly because of these two gargantuan problems, where women in the capital do not feel safe and pollution levels are causing massive health problems.
When Meera Bhatia, Amicus curiae, told the court that there have been several incidents of rapes in the city this year, the court said, "what is happening to the city?"
Romong Lepcha, a 32-year-old Video Editor moved out of Delhi after five years in the capital. He told IndiaTimes, "Delhi being one of the most air polluted cities in the country definitely played a role in me moving out. I guess I became conscious to its hazards." He now lives and works in Goa.
Reuters
A team of researchers at The University of Surrey conducted a study on Delhi's air pollution in 2015. Team member Dr Prashant Kumar said,"Air pollution has been placed in the top ten health risks faced by human beings globally. Delhi has the dubious accolade of being regularly cited as the most polluted city in the world, with air pollution causing thousands of excess deaths in a year in this growing megacity."
※While it might be easy to blame this on increased use of vehicles, industrial production or a growing population, the truth is that Delhi is a toxic pollutant punchbowl with myriad ingredients, all of which need addressing in the round,§ he further added.
In a 2015 story, The Indian Express wrote, "For the first time in history, Delhi is officially the rape capital of India" and reported the following statistics - the city reported 1,813 rapes in 2014 and 1,441 in 2013.
