New Delhi: About 33,000 deaths across 10 Indian cities each year between 2008 and 2019 can be attributed to air pollution levels exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, a new study has found. According to the study, even pollution levels below the current Indian air quality standards lead to increased daily mortality. The study, published Thursday in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health , is the first multi-city study to assess the relationship between short-term air pollution exposure and death in India.
It assessed PM2.5 (ultrafine particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometres) exposure in the ten cities and the daily mortality count between 2008 and 2019.
The study found that even in cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Chennai, which record relatively lower pollution levels, significant numbers of deaths can be attributed to pollution exposure, pointing to the low pollution standards set by India’s monitoring agencies. In recent years, even cities with the best air recordings have featured in global lists of the most polluted in the world. According to the World Air Quality Report 2023 released by a Swiss air quality monitoring body, India was declared the third most polluted country globally, after Bangladesh and Pakistan.
In the report’s list of the top 50 most polluted cities, 42 cities were from India. Bhargav Krishna, a fellow at the Sustainable Futures Collaborative, a New Delhi-based independent research organisatio.