What makes it worse is that 42 among 50 of the top polluting cities are in India. Begusarai in Bihar catapulted to the top last year with an average PM 2.5 concentration of 118.9 micrograms per cubic metre even though it figured nowhere in the 2022 rankings. Guwahati and Delhi were the second and third cities with the highest pollution levels.
The findings make one question the steps taken by the government to ensure its people get to breathe free.
The BJP’s 2019 manifesto promised a clean air programme in 102 cities and a 35% reduction in pollution in the next five years.
The Congress had wanted to declare pollution a ‘health emergency,’ the DMK had decided to focus on solar power generation and so on… but the latest report makes it evident that a half-hearted approach has spelt doom for our cities.
Take Delhi’s case. It was identified in the report as the most polluted capital city in the world for the fourth year, its PM2.5 concentration recorded at 92.7 micrograms per cubic metre in 2023, up from 89.1 micrograms per cubic metre in 2022. A deadly cocktail of stubble burning in Punjab, UP and Haryana; lower temperatures in the winter months and emissions from vehicles and rubbish dumps turns Delhi into a virtual gas chamber towards the end of every year, despite efforts by the state government to restrict the number of vehicles based on their registration numbers, ban on building construction and diesel trucks entering the city.
End-2023 was bad enough for the Capital, with AQI levels hitting 500, beyond which pollution cannot be measured, and which is 100 times more than what the World Health Organisation deems healthy.
Newspapers scrambled with stories, hard-hitting headlines and sound-bites from healthcare professionals, but all worries and concerns were blown away with the arrival of the breeze heralding summer.
When will people sit up and take notice? How long must one parrot WHO’s warning about air pollution leading to respiratory infections, heart disease and lung problems? How long must doctors keep flagging spikes in cases of pulmonary and cardiac diseases or cognitive impairment in children?
If the 2023 air quality life index compiled by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute was any indication, Delhi residents could have had their lives shortened by 11.9 years due to the poor air they breathed.
This is an election year. What people need to do is make their votes count and force governments to give top priority to pollution control measures.
Nothing else matters.
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