Current status of air pollution in india
India is at the bottom of the charts when it comes to clean, safe air. Out of 132 countries assessed by Yale and Columbia, India ranked last, indicating that they have the world’s most polluted air. The worst forms of air pollutions are often found in Indian cities. Particulate matter (PM), one of the most widely monitored pollutants in India, is the main cause of the increasing air pollution in this South Asian subcontinent. The particulate matter build up can reach as high as five times above the safety limits for some cities in India. This creates a major health concern for the people living and breathing in the polluted air every day.
The National Air Quality Monitoring Program claims that nearly half of the Indian cities monitored have reached critical levels of particulate matter. There are sixty-three cities with critical levels, thirty-six cities with high levels, and nineteen cities at moderate levels. In 2007, only three out of 121 cities in India that had been analyzed were considered at low pollution level. These cities were Dewas, Tirupati, and Kozhikode. Northern India has been known to have increasing air pollution while southern India has shown the opposite trend. Indoor pollution also plays a big role in the overall status of India’s polluted air. The average Indian household particulate matter pollution is 350 micrograms per meter cubed, which is ten times greater than the limit set by United States Environment Protection Agency. In conclusion, some air in rural homes are even worse than the outdoors air of India.