Recently, India was in the news again as a world leader – but this time for the wrong reason. According to the Swiss firm IQAir’s assessment of the air quality of world cities 2023, New Delhi is…

Recently, India was in the news again as a world leader – but this time for the wrong reason. According to the Swiss firm IQAir’s assessment of the air quality of world cities 2023, New Delhi is back to being the world’s most polluted capital. New Delhi’s annual air quality rating is 19 times the World Health Organization’s annual limit recommended in 2021 for its pollutant level. The picture is no better as far as the larger Union Territory of Delhi is considered – its annual record of pollutant levels makes it the third most polluted region globally.

Delhi may have hogged the headlines on air pollution, but the problem is far from unique to metropolises. IQAir’s findings reveal that even lower-tier cities and towns in India are choking because of very poor air quality. Indeed, Begusarai in Bihar is the world’s most polluted city. Partly industrialized, housing among others an oil refinery, Begusarai is primarily agrarian. And Begusarai is not an outlier: Mullanpur in Punjab, which is transitioning to an urban settlement, and Siwan in Bihar are among the 42 Indian cities/towns that are among the 50 most polluted globally.

Many judicial pronouncements have upheld “the right to clean air” as a corollary to the fundamental right to life and pushed governments to act. But Delhi’s bad air is despite the introduction of CNG in public transport and the building of a metro network in the early years of this decade, and in spite of the presence of a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) that kicks in when the air quality turns bad and becomes more stringent as the air quality worsens.

Improving air quality across Indian cities requires three fundamental changes. One, governments must turn to science to understand, measure, and monitor the problem. Two, they have to understand that the response will have to include behavioural changes and use a combination of incentives and penalties to achieve this. And three, clean air has to be seen as a common public good. To be sure, it is not just the responsibility of the Centre or a battle for courts to wage, but a fight that states and municipal governments have to be a part of. This is the battle for our future.

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