The latest edition of the World Air Quality report released by Swiss Air Technology major IQAir has sobering news for India. The country has 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world. The study is a reminder that though governments have taken significant steps to clean air — at times after being nudged by courts — the interventions have not led to appreciable improvements. The country is ranked the fifth-most polluted country, after Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The IQAir list comprises not just urban centres whose trysts with toxic air are well known — Delhi and its adjoining areas for example — it also features small towns such as Byrnihat in Assam and Mullanpur in Punjab. This is not a new finding. In recent years, towns such as Bhiwadi in Rajasthan and Begusarai in Bihar have topped the IQAir list. But the country’s pollution challenge continues to be framed largely in terms of a crisis in big city governance.
A knowledge base on pollutants is some Tier 2 cities is being built up gradually. The number of pollution monitoring stations has increased from 37 in 2015 to more than 1,000 (including manually operated ones) in 2023. These, however, represent less than a quarter of the country’s requirement. Small cities remain underrepresented in research and policy. There is very little micro data on most of the 74 Indian cities listed in the IQAir report. According to a 2023 study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), barely 12 per cent of India’s 4,000 census towns and cities are covered under air quality monitoring mechanisms. The analysis by the New Delhi-based organisation shows that 62 per cent of the country’s population is outside the real-time monitoring network. The other major problem is that despite the National Clean Air Programme’s emphasis on targeted interventions over large areas, pollution continues to be seen as a local problem. Individual cities and states are, by and large, left to their own devices and even emergencies such as Delhi’s annual health crisis do not lead to a modicum of cooperation.
The IQAir report underlines that pollution affects even the developed economies. However, the least developed and emerging economies are the most affected. India’s neighbours, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, are among the poor performers. The problem’s transboundary nature has been evident for long. In recent times, experts have been advocating interventions in multiple airsheds — contiguous regions — whose geography makes it difficult for them to disperse pollutants. However, cooperation between the South Asian neighbours has been underwhelming. The IQAir report is another reminder that such intransigence doesn’t work.
