An escape from India's air pollution for those who can afford it

Companies are offering much-needed, but expensive, air purification systems to shelter from the smog in one of the world's most polluted cities

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When outdoors in New Delhi, the capital of India, everyone breathes the same air, now considered the most polluted in the world. When indoors, it’s a different story. 

For a handful of Indian households with the means and awareness, access to clean air is available through a novel approach that mimics how laboratories and factories create contaminant-free rooms, but it costs nearly 70 percent of the average annual income. 

India’s air pollution is estimated to contribute to the death of about 1.7 million people in the country annually, according to global health researchers. The effects are most pronounced in the metro area around New Delhi during the winter, when stagnant winds and cooler temperatures after the annual monsoon season result in a surge in air pollutants. 

This week, the Indian government imposed emergency measures to address the severe pollution in the city, which is home to 32 million people, including many of the country’s richest and most powerful. It halted nonessential construction, banned the operation of older vehicles and moved schools from in-person to online. 

At the COP 30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, which began on Monday, the agenda highlighted the public health dangers posed by “super-pollutants,” such as airborne soot, underscoring the need for urgent action to combat climate change. 

Over the past decade, as the problem has attracted more attention, many Indian families in upper- and upper-middle-income households have equipped their living rooms with clunky air-purifying machines, typically from China, to reduce the level of particulate matter inside their homes.

 

Dr. Lancelot Pinto, a pulmonologist at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, said “reducing the quantum and duration of exposure to these particles” was beneficial for health, but partial reductions have only a limited effect when the air contains 30 times the World Health Organization’s acceptable limit for fine-grained dust.

 

A few homegrown companies are pitching a more comprehensive solution as a breakthrough, albeit at a cost that puts it far beyond the reach of the average Indian household. 

Your Own Green Area, or YOGA for short, is a start-up with a factory an hour from New Delhi, providing a service called the Clean Air Bubble to an elite client base of around 5,000 homes nationwide. About 90 percent of its customers are in the capital.

The YOGA machine works differently from free-standing indoor purifiers, which gradually clean and recycle the air. The device sits outside the house, sucking in polluted air and blowing it through thick, highly-efficient filters. It constantly pushes the filtered air inward through custom-fit openings in a home’s exterior. This creates a pressurized bubble that prevents dirty air from leaking into the interior. 

The company said this approach was especially effective for PM2.5, the microscopic particles responsible for the deadliest form of air pollution. Besides premature death, high concentrations of PM2.5 have been shown to cause dementia and to hobble the national economy by shortening productive life spans.

There is no peer-reviewed academic study on the YOGA system’s efficacy. However, customers who have installed the product have had PM2.5 levels in their homes dropping to nearly undetectable levels based on air-quality readings from third-party monitoring devices.

 

A similar principle is used in modern commercial buildings in the United States and in so-called clean rooms in laboratories. The YOGA machine draws less energy than an air-conditioner, and company technicians replace the filters regularly. 

The price, however, remains hopelessly unattainable for most households in India, where hundreds of millions of people rely on the government for grain rations and the vast majority of families cannot afford air-conditioning even though summer temperatures routinely soar past 120 degrees Fahrenheit. 

YOGA’s Clean Air Bubble costs about $1,900 to install in a three-bedroom apartment, in a country where the average annual income is $2,800. Despite the cost, the number of families willing to pay for the privilege of clean air indoors is surging. 

Since installing its first system in 2020, YOGA has relied solely on word of mouth to attract new customers. Sachin Panwar, the company’s founder, said its business had doubled in size in each of the last three years. 

Vaidehi Kanoria, a YOGA customer who works as a wellness coach, moved back to India in 2007 after working in finance in New York. She wishes that more people could have access to the technology. 

“There are haves and have-nots, and it’s very unfortunate,” she said. “But I do feel it’s important to protect your own health, however you can.

 

In 2013, Barun Aggarwal started Breathe Easy in New Delhi. At the time, many in India did not appreciate the scale of the pollution problem. It was shocking to many in the country to learn that New Delhi’s air quality was worse than that of Beijing, a city notorious at the time for smog. 

“Education about this is at a nascent stage,” Aggarwal said. He noted that Americans and Germans spend several times more on air purifiers than Indians, despite poor air quality being less harmful in those countries. 

Breathe Easy has licensed technologies from Japan, Sweden and Switzerland. It now sells the VaaYoo pollution shield, which costs about $1,700 and cleans and pumps outside air into controlled spaces, similar to the YOGA system. 

In recent years, Breathe Easy has focused its efforts on solutions for larger spaces such as schools and malls, but is now also targeting the home market. 

YOGA and Breathe Easy said they were planning to sell smaller and more affordable versions. Panwar, the founder of YOGA, said he was also working on a wearable device to provide clean air for people toiling outdoors. 

Despite the government’s failure to address the crisis, air pollution is rarely mentioned by politicians during elections. But a growing groundswell of residents is crying out in exasperation at the inaction.

 

On Sunday, several hundred protesters, wearing protective masks, gathered in the murk around New Delhi’s India Gate, a stone arch in the city center. They carried placards that read “There is Poison in the Air” and “Why is Breathing a Privilege?”

Some families relocate from New Delhi to other parts of India in search of better air, but many households with more limited resources have no choice but to stay. 

Avishek Hazra said his 7-year-old son, Saptak, felt the effect of the smoky air immediately upon returning to New Delhi after a trip to his grandfather’s village in the countryside. 

He told his father that the village air was so clean that he never felt tired, no matter how much he ran. But back in the city, Saptak’s eyes and throat burned, and he didn’t feel like going outside to play. 

Hazra supports his family by working as a public health researcher. They own a car and an air-conditioner for the bedroom. A $230 air purifier whirs in their living room. Such devices, ubiquitous in the homes of educated, urban Indians, are often treated like placebos. 

The machine’s built-in monitor provided readings that seemed haphazard and usually twice the WHO’s upper limit for safety. The family had not replaced its costly filters. 

“I don’t think this works well,” Hazra said of his purifier. “But we don’t have the luxury of changing machines.”