 "pollution building")
Mumbai’s run with bad air continued on Monday. It was the second most polluted city among 109 places tracked by IQAir, a Swiss technology company measuring air quality in real-time. Delhi was the sixth most polluted city. Beijing, meanwhile, took the top spot (chart 1).
The air quality index (AQI) score is based on the US system where a score of between 0-50 is good, 51-100 is moderate, 101-150 is unhealthy for sensitive groups, 151-200 is unhealthy, 201-300 is very unhealthy and >301 is hazardous.
The concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Mumbai was 14.7 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline of five micrograms per cubic metre. In Delhi, it was 9.8 times the guideline value.
The AQI in Mumbai was 160 on October 23 as of 5 pm. Ahmedabad, too, recorded the same index value. Delhi was further behind with an index value of 135 (chart 2).
Around 1.6 million deaths in the country in 2019 were due to air pollution, according to a study published in The Lancet in December 2020 titled ‘Health and economic impact of air pollution in the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019’.
India incurred billions in losses due to air pollution in 2019. Of this, $28.8 billion was from premature deaths and $8 billion from morbidity.
More From This Section
“The economic loss due to lost output from premature deaths and morbidity attributable to air pollution was 1.36 per cent of India's GDP (gross domestic product) in 2019.”
Among the states, economic loss was the maximum in Uttar Pradesh at $5.1 billion. Next was Maharashtra incurring a loss of $4 billion, followed by Gujarat ($2.9 billion), Karnataka ($2.7 billion), and Tamil Nadu ($2.5 billion).
"Delhi had the highest per-capita economic loss due to air pollution, followed by Haryana in 2019, with 5·4 times variation across all states,” noted the study.
Among South Asian countries, the increase in particulate matter between 2000 and 2021 was the highest in India at 54.8 per cent, followed by Bangladesh (44.1 per cent), Afghanistan (42.3 per cent), and Pakistan (39.9 per cent), according to Air Quality Life Index 2023 report by University of Chicago authors Michael Greenstone and Christa Hasenkopf.
The report went on to add that Indians lost 5.3 years of their lives due to particulate pollution compared to 4.5 years and 1.8 years lost due to cardiovascular diseases, and child and maternal malnutrition, respectively.
The welfare cost of premature deaths due to ambient particulate matter was 8.4 per cent of India’s gross domestic product in 2019, according to the report ‘Economic Policy Reforms 2023: Going for Growth’ by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It stood at 6 per cent in 2010.
In Bulgaria, the welfare cost was 13.8 per cent of the GDP, the highest among 49 countries. It was 10.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent for China and Romania, respectively.
In 2022, India was among the top 10 countries with the worst air quality, according to IQAir data.
Despite this, very few Indians consider air pollution an important election issue according to an August 2023 study entitled, ‘Why Citizen’s Don’t Hold Politicians Accountable for Air Pollution’ by University of Pennsylvania authors Shikhar Singh and Tariq Thachil. “Even in Delhi, India’s most polluted megacity, fewer than 2 per cent of citizens surveyed during recent election periods prioritised air pollution while deciding how to cast their vote.”
