Less Polluted Days Ahead?

Delhi no longer most polluted city

Business & Politics

News - Biz@India

May 17, 2016

/ By / New Delhi

Biz@India



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According to the WHO’s air quality guidelines, by decreasing particulate matter from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic metre, deaths caused by air pollution could be reduced nearly by 15 pc

According to the WHO’s air quality guidelines, by decreasing particulate matter from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic metre, deaths caused by air pollution could be reduced nearly by 15 pc

According to a recent World Health Organisation report, New Delhi is at the 25th position among the most polluted cities crosswise the globe, while Patna, Gwalior and Raipur stand at sixth, tenth, and seventh position respectively.

Delhi stands at the 25th position on the pollution metre among other cities in the world with an annual level of 229 micrograms per cubic metre, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

As per the reports released by WHO, Delhi is no longer the world’s most polluted city. The national Capital is now the 25th most polluted city in the world, among 3,000 cities in 103 countries in terms of coarse pollution particles levels and 11th in terms of PM 2.5 that is fine and particulate pollution.

Whereas Gwalior is at the tenth position with an annual average of 329 micrograms per cubic metre.

The latest report includes data from 2012, 2013 and a part of 2014 for India, and states that global urban air pollution levels increased by eight pc, in spite of improvements in some regions.

Other polluted regions

According to the rankings of the report, Zabol, a city in Iran topped the list with 217 micrograms per cubic metre followed by Gwalior with 176 and Allahabad with 170. Patna at sixth place and Raipur on seventh spot are the other Indian cities in the top 10.

According to the WHO’s air quality guidelines, by decreasing particulate matter from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic metre, deaths caused by air pollution could be reduced nearly by 15 pc. WHO states that safe limits for annual mean of PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels are 10 and 20 micrograms per cubic metre, respectively.

“We have stressed on PM 2.5 because it is the pollutant which is of most health interest globally. We have analysed annual rather than 24-hour averages or real time air quality, because we wanted to understand exposure levels over long term and see its effects. We are trying to see if these findings can be linked to the global disease burden,” Dr Sophie Germy told to The Indian Express.

“I think India needs to be congratulated for its intensive monitoring of air quality in metros and now tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Delhi, in particular, has done a lot of things to reduce PM 2.5 levels. The main source of PM 2.5 in India is fuel burning and vehicles, in particular, cars. I think on both accounts Delhi has recognised these sources as a problem and taken steps to control it,” she added.

To combat pollution and its effects, a lot more needs to be done in India and some steps need to be duplicated as even in some of the high income cities, particulate matter continues to remain a problem despite intensive monitoring and steps to control pollution.

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