This study under the SIM-air program was initiated with support from the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (New Delhi, India) to better understand the sources of air pollution in the Pune city and to support an integrated dialogue between local pollution management and climate policy in a co-benefits framework.

With temperatures dropping in the city, the level of suspended air particles has shot up.

A decade ago, plans for a metro and clean-fuel buses were hailed as New Delhi’s answer to pollution.

The air was monitored for two consecutive periods, in the dry and the rainy seasons (2009-2010) at 40 petroleum-filling stations in the Indian capital, Delhi, to assess variations in carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, PM10, PM2.5, benzene, toluene and xylene content. PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations exceeded the national ambient air quality standards at all the monitoring locations with maximum values of 1105 and 625 μg m−3, respectively, in the dry season.