14 of 20 most polluted cities in the world in India: WHO

New report by the World Health Organisation paints a dire picture; Delhi is the most polluted Indian city

According to a new World Health Organisation report, 14 out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India.

The air pollution related mortality and disease burden India faces is also the highest in the world. More than 2 million deaths occur in India prematurely every year, accounting for 25% of the global deaths due to poor air quality.

The analysis indicates the severe and persistent nature of the problem across cities in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. While Delhi tops the charts, it is important to note that for more than 20 percent of the days, the data was not available during the months of October 2017 – January 2018.

THE SUMMER-TIME POLLUTION TOO THIS YEAR WAS RAMPANT AS THE REGIONS AROUND DELHI AND NCR EXPERIENCED DUST STORMS COUPLED WITH PROBLEMS OF POLLUTION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL.

Apart from Delhi, in most cities there were less than four monitoring stations and online monitoring does not happen. Srinagar had no monitoring stations. Delhi has close to 40 monitoring stations that display data online every day.

Most cities, unlike Delhi do not have an emergency response plan to tackle air pollution. While some of the cities like Patna and Varanasi have recently formulated action plans, there are none in place to issue advisories or mitigate the pollution at the source level instantly as in the case of the Graded Response Action Plan.

The summer-time pollution too this year was rampant as the regions around Delhi and NCR experienced dust storms coupled with problems of pollution at the local level.

The Graded Response Action Plan in cities like Delhi is only being implemented during the winter months while the pattern of pollution is clearly indicating that there is a problem throughout the year.

The sample population was under thirty years of age,which indicates a dire state of lung health in those living in Delhi, while on the other hand there is hardly any such data available in other cities in the NCR region and in cities like Kanpur or Gaya.