New Delhi: The Swiss firm IQAir in its ‘World Air Quality Report’ released on Tuesday ranked India the world’s eighth most polluted country in 2022, dropping from the fifth place the previous year. In the list of most polluted cities in the world, out of the 50 cities, 39 are in India.
Chad, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Kuwait, India, Egypt and Tajikistan were the top 10 most polluted countries while Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, and New Zealand met the World Health Organization (WHO) PM2.5 guideline (annual average of 5 Aug/m3 or less).
The data from 131 countries was taken from over 30,000 ground-based monitors, either government or non-government-operated.
As per report, In India, the transportation sector causes 20-35 percent of the PM2.5 pollution while other sources of pollution are industrial units, coal-fired power plants and biomass burning.
After the two top most-polluted cities, Lahore in Pakistan and Hotan in China, Rajasthan’s Bhiwadi is in third place and Delhi ranked fourth.
Delhi’s PM2.5 level is almost 20 times the safe limit, the report stated.
Delhi has so far been the most polluted capital in the world and the report made a distinction between ‘greater’ Delhi and New Delhi the capital. Both are in the top 10 and the infamous distinction of being the world’s most polluted capital goes to Chad’s N’Djamena.
National Capital’s peripherals– Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad have seen a decline in pollution levels. The report said that there is a 34 percent decline in Gurugram to 21 percent in Faridabad if compared to the average PM2.5 levels reported in previous years.
Delhi has seen a decline of eight percent.
The report said that worldwide, poor air quality accounts for 93 billion days lived with illness and over six million deaths each year.
“The total economic cost equates to over $8 trillion dollars, surpassing 6.1 percent of the global annual GDP. Exposure to air pollution causes and aggravates several health conditions which include, but are not limited to, asthma, cancer, lung illnesses, heart disease, and premature mortality,” the report said.
Interestingly, as many as 31 cities have seen a double-digit percentage decline in pollution levels. Of these, 10 are in Uttar Pradesh and seven in Haryana. The biggest fall has been in the Taj Mahal city, Agra, by 55 per cent. The average PM 2.5 between 2017-21 was 85 micrograms and in 2022 this was just 38 micrograms per cubic metre.
On the flip side, as many as 38 cities and towns have seen a rise in pollution compared to an average of previous years.
“A total of 38 cities and towns have seen a rise in pollution compared to an average of previous years,” stated the report.
Among the other metros, Kolkata is the most polluted after Delhi, but by a wide margin. Chennai is relatively the cleanest with pollution ‘just’ 5x the WHO’s safe level. In fact, the only metros where pollution levels saw an uptick over the average since 2017 are Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
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