By Tanushree Ganguly

On November 18, the hourly average PM2.5 concentrations in Delhi were more than 400 μg/m3. As I was walking back to my apartment, gasping for breath under my mask, kids in my residential colony were playing football. Last year, India hosted the Cricket World Cup and half of the matches were played in “unhealthy” air pollution levels. In 2023, light motor vehicle registrations were higher than pre-pandemic levels, signalling an increase in the number of cars in the city. I could keep adding to this list of signs of our evident apathy towards our air pollution.

While some may argue that people in Delhi are now more aware of air pollution than they were a decade back, my rebuttal would be that awareness does not mean that people are concerned. Outrage against polluted air is still limited to the winter months when pollution levels are unimaginable. But what people forget is that it is not only the wintertime pollution that is shortening lifespans. The PM2.5 levels that people breathe throughout the year are likely to cost Delhiites more than 7 years of their life expectancy.

The big question here is what would it take for people and policymakers to see that air pollution is affecting the millions living in the Indo-Gangetic plain, every single day? Why isn’t there urgency in the way the problem is being dealt with? The answer lies in how we frame and communicate the issue.

Hyperfocus On AQI

We express outrage when AQI levels exceed 500 and celebrate when they drop to 300, even though, in both cases, PM2.5 concentrations, the primary pollutant driving AQI, remain dangerously high, far above both World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and India’s national standards. In fact, Delhi’s annual PM2.5 levels are more than twice India’s national standard. If Delhi were to meet India’s national standard for annual PM2.5 concentrations—which is eight times the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³—average life expectancy could increase by over three years.

Furthermore, recent research from 10 Indian cities shows that mortality risks rise more sharply at lower to moderate PM2.5 levels (below India’s standard) than at higher concentrations. Why, then, do we talk about air pollution only when AQI hits catastrophic levels? Shouldn’t every breach of the national standard trigger public concern and action?

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