water pollution

This report tries  to  summarize  the  information  available  about the  different costs of  water pollution in India. The variety of these costs comes not only from the variety of pollution dealt with (domestic, industrial, agricultural …) but also from the method used to calculate these costs. The notion of cost is quite complex. Formally, it implies the comparison between two scenarios, and the assessment of the welfare of a group of economic agent in both scenarios. In the case of water pollution, the problem can be  represented by a resource which provides environmental services, and economic agents that benefit from these services. Calculating a formal cost of water pollution would imply to model the different  equilibrium at stake, and to deduct from these different equilibrium the effect of a difference in the ambient pollution on the aggregated welfare. To determine these equilibriums, one would need hydrological as well as agronomic, medical and 
behavioural models that are not available as for now in India

State-Wise sanctioned cost of National River Conservation Plan:

   Programs implemented by the National River Conservation Directorate

Name	Number      of      towns covered	Volume               of Sewage Diverted / Treated (MLD)	Cost (Rs. Crores)
Ganga      Action       Plan Phase I	25	873	462.04
National                    River Conservation Plan	46	1928	737.13
Yamuna Action Plan	20	744	823.57
Gomati Action Plan	3	269	61.11
Damodar Action Plan	12	68	23.58
Ganga      Action       Plan Phase II (main stem)	29	618	378
Ganga      Action       Plan Phase II (Supreme Court Towns)	30	162	209.90

  Impact on drinking water

Both rural and urban water supply were dealt with.

For rural water supply, an average travel cost of water fetching was estimated at 1.20 hours a day per household. Taking an average wage rate per day for agricultural labour of Rs. 54, the travel cost accounts for an annual cost of RS. 3888.

However, no differential estimation of this travel cost between affected and non affected zones was performed.

individual from a certain population, the chance to die from the specified disease. The second one is morbidity, which reflects the chance to get infected by the disease. The WHO and the World Bank have  undertaken a joint exercise in order to provide global estimates of the burden of disease. In order to provide a standardized measure of health outcomes, a new indicator, DALYs (for Disability Adujsted Life  Years) was been developed by the WHO (see Murray & Lopez

1996). A first compilation of data from all countries, covering the major causes of illness was done with the 1990 data and was presented in the 1993 World Development Report : "Investing in Health".

DALYs combines life years lost due to premature death and fractions of years of healthy life lost as a result of illness or disability. A weighting function that incorporates discounting is used for years of life list at each age to reflect the different social weights that are usually given to illness and premature mortality at different ages.

	Males		Females		Total		Rank
DALYs	DALYs	%	DALYs	%	DALYs	%
Total DALYs lost, thousands	146091	100	146698	100	292789	100
Communicable,       Maternal            and Perinatal Causes	71690	49.1	77805	53	149495	51.1
Tuberculosis	6282	4.3	4518	3.1	10800	3.7	11
STDs	30	0.4	3203	2.2	3733	1.3	18
HIV	2707	1.9	1358	0.9	4065	1.4	16
Diarrheal Disease	13643	9.3	14394	9.8	28037	9.6	3
Childhood Cluster	9579	6.6	9874	6.7	19453	6.6	6
Meningitis	1191	0.8	815	0.6	2006	0.7	23
Hepatitis	143	0.1	168	0.1	311	0.1	28
Malaria	4760	3.3	4750	3.2	9510	3.2	12
Tropical Cluster	1479	1	966	0.7	2445	0.8	20
Leprosy	259	0.2	262	0.2	521	0.2	27
Trachoma	112	0.1	197	0.1	309	0.1	29
Intestinal Helminthes	1056	0.7	1000	0.7	2056	0.7	22
Respiratory Infections	15568	10.7	16186	11	31754	10.8	1
Maternal Causes	0	0	7824	5.3	7824	2.7	15
Perinatal Causes	14381	9.8	12290	8.4	26671	9.1	4
Noncommunicable Causes	59625	40.8	56942	38.8	116567	39.8
Malignant Neoplasms	6633	4.5	5409	3.7	12042	4.1	9
Diabetes Mellitus	840	0.6	1028	0.7	1868	0.6	24
Nutritional and Endocrine Causes	9183	6.3	9082	6.2	18265	6.2	7
Neuropsychiatric	9426	6.5	8411	5.7	17837	6.1	8
Sense Organ (mainly eye)	1238	0.8	1146	0.8	2384	0.8	21
Cardiovascular	14732	10.1	13860	9.4	28592	9.8	2
Respiratory	3900	2.7	4006	2.7	7906	2.7	14

Digestive	5607	3.8	5634	3.8	11241	3.8	10
Genitourinary	1884	1.3	2048	1.4	3932	1.3	17
Musculoskelatal	405	0.3	849	0.6	1254	0.4	26
Congenital Abnormalities	4843	3.3	4590	3.1	9433	3.2	13
Oral Health	934	0.6	879	0.6	1813	0.6	25
Injuries	14776	10.1	11951	8.1	26727	9.1
Unintentional	12640	8.7	10494	7.2	23134	7.9	5
Intentional	2136	1.5	1457	1	3593	1.2	1

  Assessment of the health impact of water pollution.

In the process of assessing the health impact of pollution, the different kind of pollution, namely air pollution and water pollution do not set the same challenges.

The first difference between air pollution and water pollution is the uniformity of the pollution. Indeed, it can be assumed that air pollution is more or less uniform on a certain area, whereas water quality may differ greatly within a small area following the location of pollution sources. The second difference is the linkage between the ambient quality and the characteristics of the air

breathed or the water ingested. Indeed, in can be assumed that within a specified area where air

pollution is considered as uniform, everyone breath the same air, whereas several external factors may have an influence on the quality of water ingested by individuals. The complexity of this process is illustrated in chart 1

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