India plans stricter quality standards to tackle air pollution
At present, there are 1,504 air monitoring stations in 543 cities across the country. The government has entrusted the job of updating NAAQS to IIT Kanpur, which has set up a panel comprising experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other institutions. “Work on the new NAAQS is ongoing.
We have given the project to IIT Kanpur, and the new standards will be notified soon. Currently, we have 12 parameters; there could be some additions and some changes in permissible limits," one of the two officials said on the condition of anonymity. “When we talk about exposure, particulate matter (PM) 2.5 keeps coming to the conversation.
Here, natural resources have a contribution of 40-50% to PM2.5 and 10. Other developed nations have a problem of sulfur dioxide (So2); they don’t talk about PM2.5 and its weightage is less. In India, our issue is population and our ranking is low.
All these affect human health. We have raised the concern to Niti Aayog." India ranked as the third most polluted country in 2023, after Bangladesh and Pakistan, according to World Air Quality Report 2023 by Swiss air quality monitoring body, IQAir. The air quality standards are meant to protect public health from exposure to six air pollutants: Particulate matters, ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide and lead.
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