Due to decades of neglect and indifference, air quality in Indian cities has worsened rapidly, triggering a serious public health crisis. Central and state governments are still at a loss in dealing with the problem and except Delhi, no city is taking effective steps to control pollution. Even in Delhi, the drive to deal with pollution is not coming from the government but the Supreme Court. Recently, high courts in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have clamped down on the polluting three-wheelers by either banning them or pushing them to run on cleaner fuels.

One serious problem is poor monitoring of air quality. Several small cities and towns are not covered by the monitoring grid of cpcb and the state pollution control boards (spcbs). It is important to have reliable data to understand trends