Delhi ranks #4 on list of world’s most polluted cities

The report makes a distinction between New Delhi and Delhi, with New Delhi having an annual average PM2.5 level of 89.1 μg/m3. New Delhi is the second most polluted capital city in the world. This is on a list of 116 capital cities, with N’Djamena in Chad topping this list with only a marginally higher PM2.5 level of 89.7 μg/m3. Over the past four years, Delhi has topped the IQAir list of most polluted capital cities.

IQAir is a Swiss air quality technology company that prepares annual world air quality reports based on data from monitoring stations operated by governments and other institutions and organisations across the world. The 2022 report is based on PM2.5 data from 7,323 cities and 131 countries.

A total of 39 Indian cities (including ‘Delhi’ and ‘New Delhi’) are on the list of 50 of the world’s most polluted cities based on annual average PM2.5 levels in 2022. These include cities like Noida, Gurgaon, Bulandshahr, Meerut, Charkhi Dadri, Jind, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, and Greater Noida.

Delhi’s annual average PM2.5 level in 2020 was 84 µg/m3, and 98.6 µg/m3 in 2019, according to IQAir. In 2022, Delhi’s average PM2.5 level was found to be highest in November.

Out of 131 countries, India ranked eighth with a population weighted average PM2.5 level of 53.3 μg/m3 in 2022. India is behind Chad, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Kuwait on this list. The annual average for the country in 2022 was a little lower than the 58.1 μg/m3 recorded in 2021.