'In these 50 cities, with their population of 110 million, the public health damage costs due to this was estimated at Rs.15,000 crore in 2004,' Varughese said.

The main causes of urban air pollution were vehicles and factories, he pointed out, appealing for a major boost to public transport.

While India still had some cushion when it came to water use, this scarce resource would have to be managed very carefully, the report says. It identifies lack of proper pricing of water for domestic usage, poor sanitation, unregulated extraction of groundwater by industry, discharge of toxic and organic wastewater by factories, inefficient irrigation and overuse of chemical fertilisers and pesticides as the main causes of water problems in the country.

While India remains one of the world's 17 'megadiverse' countries in terms of the number of species it houses, 10 percent of its wild flora and fauna are on the threatened list, Varughese pointed out. The main causes, according to the report, were habitat destruction, poaching, invasive species, overexploitation, pollution and climate change.

The report points out that while India contributes only about five percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions that are leading to climate change, about 700 million Indians directly face the threat of global warming today, as it affects farming, makes droughts, floods and storms more frequent and more severe and is raising the sea level.

In the section on urbanisation, the report points out that 20 to 40 percent of people living in cities are in slums. Varughese said there were good projects to upgrade their lives and improve the environment at the same time, but the problem was that most of the money from schemes like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission was taken away by the big cities, 'while the major problem is in about 4,000 small and medium towns'.