Air pollution: Indians breath toxic air eight times more dangerous compared to WHO standard

According to the new data, exposure to such high levels of poisonous particles in air, cuts the average life expectancy of Indians by 3.5 years.

New Delhi: Every Indian breathes air that contains eight times more toxic particles as compared to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) safe air quality level, according to a new set of air pollution data released on Thursday.

Exposure to such high levels of poisonous particles in air cuts the average life expectancy of Indians by 3.5 years. For the highly polluting national capital, it means loss of 8.2 years of life for each resident of Delhi.

Compared to the northern plains, southern India is relatively better. But still bringing down the level of air pollution to the WHO standard will add 1.6 additional years of life to everyone in Karnataka; 2.1 years in Andhra Pradesh; 2.4 years in Telangana; 1.7 years in Tamil Nadu and 1.3 years in Kerala, says the Air Quality Life Index created by a global team led by the University of Chicago.

Outside of Delhi and northern plains, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra face the highest health burden of particulate pollution. Improving the air quality to meet the WHO guideline could add 3.3, 3.1 and 2.8 years respectively to the average life expectancy in these states.

“Air pollution remains a top reason why people are living shorter lives throughout the world.” AQLI director Tanushree Ganguly said in a statement.

This is an annual exercise in which air quality of all the countries are checked using satellite data and other statistical tools. The present one captures the 2023 scenario after the world came out of the pandemic and economic activities have begun to pick up.

All of India’s 1.4 billion people, it shows, live in areas where the annual average particulate pollution level (PM 2.5) exceeds the WHO safe guideline of 5 micrograms per cubic metre.

This means even people living in the cleanest regions of India could live 9.4 months longer if particulate concentrations in these regions were reduced to the WHO standard.

PM-2.5 is the most dangerous toxic particle that penetrates the lungs and goes to the bloodstream. It is one of the two air quality indicators (along with PM-10) of dust that are monitored.

Nearly half of India’s population – 46 per cent to be exact - lives in areas that exceed India’s own annual PM2.5 standard of 40 micrograms per cubic metre.

Reducing particulate concentrations in these regions even to the Indian standard could add 1.5 years to the life expectancy of people living there.

Going by the WHO standard in the most polluted the northern plains, toxic air cuts five years of lives for over 540 million residents or close to 40% of India’s population.

Even in the past multiple studies have shown a link between air quality and mortality. According to one such study in Lancet Planetary Health last December, a minimal level of annual exposure to PM2.is potentially associated with an estimated 15 lakh deaths in a year in India.