According to a recent report by The Lancet Planetary Health, air pollution was responsible for 16.7 lakh deaths in India in 2019, or 17.8% of all deaths in the country that year. This is the largest number of air-pollution-related deaths of any country.
Key findings of the report
- Globally, air pollution alone contributes to 66.7 lakh deaths, according to the report.
- Overall, pollution was responsible for an estimated 90 lakh deaths in 2019 (equivalent to one in six deaths worldwide), a number that has remained unchanged since the 2015 analysis.
- Ambient air pollution was responsible for 45 lakh deaths, and hazardous chemical pollutants for 17 lakh, with 9 lakh deaths attributable to lead pollution.
Key findings on India
- The majority of the 16.7 lakh air pollution-related deaths in India – 9.8 lakh — were caused by PM2.5 pollution, and another 6.1 lakh by household air pollution.
- Although the number of deaths from pollution sources associated with extreme poverty (such as indoor air pollution and water pollution) has decreased, these reductions are offset by increased deaths attributable to industrial pollution (such as ambient air pollution and chemical pollution).
- Air pollution is most severe in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This area contains New Delhi and many of the most polluted cities.
- Burning of biomass in households was the single largest cause of air pollution deaths in India, followed by coal combustion and crop burning.
WHO guideline
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has substantially tightened its health-based global air quality guidelines, lowering the guideline value for PM2.5 from 10 micrograms per cubic metre to 5.
- This means that there is hardly any place in India which follows the WHO norms.
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