14 most polluted cities in world are all in India

Delhi The WHO global air pollution database released in Geneva on Wednesday reveals that India has 14 out of the 15 most polluted cities in the world in terms of PM 2.5 concentrations, with the worst being Kanpur. It is followed by Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya and Patna.

Despite public outcry over severe air pollution, and both Centre and Delhi government taking up the issue, WHO’s database of more than 4,000 cities in 100 countries shows that Delhi’s pollution levels improved only marginally between 2010 and 2014 but started deteriorating again in 2015. In 2016, the latest year in WHO’s database, Delhi was in sixth spot.

Air pollution level better in 2017, claims CPCB
Delhi's PM 2.5 annual average was 143 micrograms per cubic metre, more than three times the national safe standard, while the PM 10 average was 292 micrograms per cubic metre, more than 4.5 times the national standard.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had recently claimed that air pollution levels improved in 2017 as compared to 2016. The board, however, hasn’t released the annual average PM 2.5 concentration for 2017 yet.

A number of policies came into effect towards the end of 2016 — the graded response action plan (GRAP) in October, doubling of the environment compensation charge (ECC) on trucks in December 2015 and better coordination among NCR states on pollution control.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) report, however, doesn’t reflect this because it considers annual PM 10 and PM 2.5 averages between 2010 and 2016. Data sources for Delhi is mainly from CPCB (about 10 stations), although for the years 2015 and 2016 WHO also considered data from ministry of earth sciences (MoES) and US Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) Air Now. This may have also influenced the air pollution concentrations for 2015 and 2016, experts said.

Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur topped the 2016 list with a PM 2.5 concentration of 173 micrograms per cubic metre, followed by Faridabad in Haryana, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar’s Gaya.

Ironically, as India’s air pollution monitoring network improved in the past few years with more cities being monitored, the number of Indian cities in the top polluters’ list zoomed.