Regulatory air pollution monitoring in India is mostly limited to urban areas. Without a dense network of monitors, it is difficult to capture the fine spatial variations of PM2.5, one of the major pollutants with severe implications for human health.

he Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019, with the aim to improve air-quality levels in non-attainment cities. NCAP has identified 122 non-attainment cities (cities that violate the national ambient air quality standards).

According to the Global Burden of Disease 2019 study, air pollution from fine particulate matter caused 6.4 million premature deaths and 93 billion days lived with illness in 2019. Over the past decade, the toll of ambient air pollution has continued to rise.

This report brings together the key insights from an air quality of analysis of 10 cities in South India: Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mysuru, Kochi, Mangalore, Visakhapatnam, Amaravati, Coimbatore and Puducherry. Observations show that PM2.5 and PM10 levels in all cities are well above the recommended World Health Organization limits.

Outdoor air pollution accounts for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide, the majority of which are caused by exposure to fine particulate matter (or PM2.5) air pollution. Most of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Air pollution is increasingly understood as a global issue, requiring an understanding of pollution sources, transport, and transformation from local to regional to global scales (IPCC, 2013).

Exposure to air pollution has long been associated with mortality and shortened life expectancy and has been acknowledged as one of the main risk factors that affect people’s health worldwide. Among all air pollutants, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been identified as a substantial public health concern.

Urban India, particularly metros, is a major hotspot of air pollution with a PM2.5 concentration level ranging above the permissible limits defined by the WHO for most of the year. Unsurprisingly, special efforts have been made by the Government of India in recent years to improve air quality.

This study reviews and compares five databases (three global and two regional) that provide emission estimates for air pollutants in India. These databases include EDGARv5, ECLIPSEv6b, REASv3.2, SMoGv1 and TERI (2016).

New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs) provide clear evidence of the damage air pollution inflicts on human health, at even lower concentrations than previously understood.