By Pankaj Yadav
NEW DELHI, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Following the World Health Organization (WHO) report describing Indian cities as the most polluted globally, experts working on containing air pollution in the country on Wednesday earnestly appealed for a national action plan to curb air pollution.
The latest urban air quality database 2016 released by the WHO on Wednesday said that out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, the top 14 are in India.
The worst polluted Indian cities in terms of PM2.5 concentrations are Kanpur with a PM 2.5 concentration of 173 micrograms per cubic meter, followed by Faridabad, Varanasi and Gaya.
India's financial capital Mumbai is the world's fourth most polluted megacity.
The study considered PM2.5 (particulate matter of diameter less than 2.5 micrometres) and PM10. PM2.5 is more dangerous than PM10. The period considered for the study was 2010 to 2016.
Other Indian cities that registered very high levels of PM2.5 pollutants are Delhi, Patna, Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurugram, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur.
Responding to the WHO report, director general, Center for Science and Environment (CSE) Sunita Narain said that the report is a "dire warning about the serious and run-away pollution and public health emergency" that confronts India today.
CSE is a public interest research and advocacy organization based in New Delhi. It researches into and lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development, both sustainable and equitable.
CSE's Executive Director (research and advocacy) Anumita Roychowdhury said that the WHO report is a grim reminder that air pollution has become a national public health crisis.
"Urgent intervention is needed for implementing the National Clean Air Action Plan with a strong compliance strategy to meet the clean air standards in all cities. It requires hard action," she said.
She further suggested that state governments in the country will also have to wake up to ensure action plans are implemented with utmost stringency and aggression.
"India needs massive energy transition across industries and households, mobility transition to public transport, walking and cycling, and effective waste management to control this run-away pollution," she added.
CSE said real-time air quality monitoring, especially that of PM2.5, will have to be expanded significantly to assess air quality in all cities with sizeable population.
Out of the 5,000 odd cities and towns in India, monitoring is being done in only 307 cities. Most of this is manual monitoring that reports data with considerable time lag.
In its latest report, the WHO also stated that nine in every 10 people in the world breathe polluted air. It said that 7 million people die every year because of outdoor and household air pollution.
It further stated that countries are taking measures to tackle and reduce air pollution from particulate matter with India's efforts mentioned.
In just two years, India's "Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana Scheme" has provided some 37 million women living below the poverty line with free LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) connections to support them to switch to clean household energy use, it elaborated.
