The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) on Wednesday said comparing the Indian scenario with the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards for air pollution is a flawed method. MPCB officials were referring to the WHO’s global air pollution report, which said 14 of the 15 most polluted cities are in India.
“The WHO standards and the Indian standards differ a lot. They have studied the presence of PM [particulate matter] in the air. The WHO standard for annual average for PM 10 is 20 micrograms per cubic metre and for PM 2.5, 10 micrograms per cubic metre. As per the Indian standards set by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the annual average for PM 10 is 60 and PM 2.5, 40,” Vidyanand Motghare, joint director, MPCB, said. As per the WHO report, the PM10 concentration was the highest in Delhi at 292, followed by Cairo at 284, Dhaka 147, and Mumbai at 104. The PM 2.5 in Mumbai as calculated by the WHO was 64. It has looked at data from 2010 to 2016.
Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, WHO South-East Asia, said most countries have national action plans for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, which incorporate measures to address household air pollution. “More cities are now measuring air quality, but we need to do much more, and with an urgent and aggressive approach,” she said.
The national action plan for India to control air pollution is expected to release in June. Mr. Motghare said they had also sent a 42-point charter to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which includes suggestions like road widening, promoting battery-operated vehicles, regular brooming of roads, tarring of roads, and shifting of crematorium of clean fuels like liquefied petroleum gas and piped natural gas.
According to Dr. Gufran Beig, project director, System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research, there is no doubt that air pollution is increasingly becoming a cause of worry, especially in Indian metro cities.
“I, however, have some reservations in accepting conclusions of the WHO report, particularly about Indian cities and the authenticity of their data base. WHO must consult Indian stakeholders before conclusions. This ranking is biased towards specific single station data, which in most cases is traffic junction. Air quality index of a city is a combination of different micro environments,” Dr. Beig said.
