BANGALORE: India’s capital city Delhi, with an annual average of 153 micrograms of small particulates, known as PM 2.5, per cubic metre, witnesses the worst air pollution among all the major cities in the world. To make the situation grievous, the PM10 levels have increased during the last few years in many other Indian cities including Piune , Jammu and Dehradun, according to the study conducted by WHO entitled Ambient Air Pollution, reports The Financial Express.
As per the study of 1,600 cities, air pollution had been worsened since a smaller survey in 2011 and this put city-dwellers at a greater risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease. And also environmentalists said that plan to combat vehicular pollution was very much a need of the hour.
Director-General of the Centre for Science and Environment, Sunita Narain said, "The number of vehicles has increased exponentially and the number of diesel vehicles has increased. Diesel is particularly, extremely toxic, it is also the key reason why there are such high levels of particulate pollution in the city of Delhi," reports Business Standard.
On the other hand, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, functioning under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, denies the WHO’s study and exclaimed that the WHO overrated Delhi’s pollution levels. Also, the Delhi government pointed out that there was vagueness in the data available to WHO on pollution in China.
"We may not be as bad as Beijing. We are not here in a match where we have to score over each other. But the fact is Beijing is bad and Delhi is bad. The fact also is that Bejing is taking tough steps to reduce its emissions and Delhi is not," added Narain.
All the aforementioned facts are disclosed in the AAP data of outdoor air pollution taken from almost 1,600 cities in 91 countries.
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