Congress leader and former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday called on the Narendra Modi government to acknowledge the public health crisis linked to air pollution after a new study found enhanced mortality across all ages wherever air pollution exceeds limits.

The study by the International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, has found the risk of premature mortality 13 per cent higher for adults and nearly 100 per cent higher for children in districts that breach pollution standards compared with districts with clean air.

The study published last week comes weeks after the Union health ministry told Parliament there was “no conclusive data” to directly correlate air pollution and deaths.

“The government’s modus operandi is to deny that there is a real air pollution-linked mortality problem, underfund programmes targeted at mitigating pollution, fail to utilise the resources that it allocates, and misuse the funds that do get spent,” Ramesh said in a statement on Monday.

Ramesh said the first step must be to acknowledge the public health crisis from air pollution across wide swathes of the country. He has also called on the government to “revisit and totally revamp” both the air pollution control laws and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) put into effect in November 2009.

Ramesh, who was the environment minister between 2009 and 2011, has also called for an increase in funding for air pollution control activities. The National Clean Air Programme currently has grants of ₹10,500 crore spread across 131 cities. “Our cities need at least 10 to 20 times more funding,” Ramesh said in the statement, adding that the NCAP must receive at least ₹25,000 crore.

He said the NCAP must also reorient its focus to key sources of emissions — burning of solid fuels, vehicular emissions, and industrial emissions — and install meaningful air pollution monitoring mechanisms in every Indian city.