9 of the 10 most polluted cities in world are in India: Report

NEW DELHI: World Air Quality Report 2020 was prepared and globally released on March 16 by IQAir, a Swiss organisation. The report found 22 of the world’s most polluted cities to be Indian. According to its findings, 84 per cent of all monitored countries observed improvements in air quality in 2020, as the report revealed the impact of COVID-19 lockdown and behavioural changes on global particulate pollution (PM2.5) levels. The report, presenting the ranking of cities across the globe from among 106 countries, is based on data on PM2.5 measure, which has been measured by ground-based monitoring stations, most of which are operated by the respective government agencies.

Ghaziabad, a city in Uttar Pradesh and a part of the National Capital Region of Delhi, has been found to be the second most polluted city in the world after Xinjiang (specifically Hotan region) in China. The report said that the high levels of air pollution in Delhi are a matter of concern. Although Delhi’s air quality experienced improvement by nearly 15 per cent from 2019 to 2020, the report stated, the city still ranked as the 10th most polluted city in the world and the most polluted capital.

According to the analysis of the data collected, major sources of India’s air pollution has been found to include transportation, biomass burning for cooking, electricity generation, industry, construction, waste burning and episodic agricultural burning. The report established that the transportation sector has come out as one of the major contributors to India’s leading PM2.5 emission sources across cities. Besides Delhi and Ghaziabad, other cities in the top 10 polluted cities are Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow, and Bhiwari. Noticeably, eight of these nine cities are from the state of Uttar Pradesh. Faridabad, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bandhwari, Gurugram, Yamunanagar, Rohtak, and Dharuhera in Haryana; Muzaffarpur in Bihar; and Meerut, Agra, and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh are the other cities included in the top 30 cities. Notably, 35 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities in 2020 in the report, have also found to be from India.

Avinash Chanchal, Climate Campaigner at Greenpeace India, attempted to put the global IQAir report in the Indian context and said that the health and economic cost of air pollution in India remain severe, even when many Indian cities recorded marginal improvements in air quality due to lockdowns. In February 2021, an analysis IQAir data prepared by Greenpeace Southeast Asia said that air pollution caused by hazardous PM2.5 fine particulate matter has led to death of 54,000 people last year in Delhi, where pollution levels remained almost six times above the prescribed WHO limits. He said it would be pertinent for governments to prioritise sustainable and clean energy sources, and for the cities to encourage low cost, active and carbon-neutral mobility choices such as walking, cycling, and accessible public transport. Chanchal further added that speeding up the transition to clean energy and clean transport in India will not only save lives but also dramatically reduce healthcare-related costs.

Frank Hammes, Chief Executive Officer, IQAir, at the release of the report, commented that the year 2020 brought an unexpected dip in air pollution, but added that in 2021, the world will likely see an increase in air pollution due to resuming human activities, again. He said that with this report, the organisation is hoping to highlight the need for urgent action to combat air pollution, which currently remains the world’s greatest environmental health threat.