Kanpur tops World Health Organization’s list of most polluted city
14 out of the 15 city list released by WHO are in India
Delhi may not even be top in the most polluted cities of the world, but circumstances are not so good for Indian cities. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization released a list of the world’s 15 most polluted cities in Geneva. Out of the 15 cities 14 cities are of India, in which Kanpur is on the first rung. Delhi is sixth in the list of most polluted cities.
The WHO report states that in the case of air pollution, the situation of 14 cities of India is very bad. Kanpur is the second largest city of Uttar Pradesh in this list. After Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur are included. Kuwait’s Sabeh Al Salem city is the 15th and the only city on the list which is not in India. It is noteworthy that in case of air pollution, Delhi was in fourth position in the 2015 report, which has now slipped to the sixth place.
WHO statistics show that between 2010-2014, there has been minor improvement in the pollution level of Delhi, but the situation has started to worsen again since 2015. The WHO has studied 4,000 cities in 100 countries for air pollution. This study indicates that there was slight improvement in the state of air condition between 2010 and 2014 in Delhi, but the situation started to worsen again since 2015.
Delhi: worst situation in six years
Figures show that the PM 2.5 annual average of 143 microgram per cubic meter in Delhi is three times higher than the National Safety Standard, while PM 10 is 292 microgram per cubic meter which is 4.5 times higher than the national standard. The Union Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had claimed a few days ago that the level of air pollution has improved in 2017 compared to 2016. Although the board has not yet released the current PM 2.5 figure in the air for 2017.
Many steps taken but no result
In 2016, several steps were taken to tackle air pollution in India. These measures include better coordination between the cities of NCR, in relation to the Environmental Reimbursement Fee (ECC) and air pollution control on trucks in the graded response action plan, in December 2015. The information was not found by the steps taken by the government, because the data from the WHO report has been added till 2016.
According to the 2010 report, Delhi was the most polluted city in the world followed by Peshawar and Rawalpindi . At that time only Agra was included in other cities of India in the 10 most polluted cities of the world. In the 2011 report, Delhi and Agra were also included in the list of polluted cities and Ulaanbaatar was the world’s most polluted city. The situation began to change in 2012 and 14 cities of India were included in the world’s 20 most polluted cities alone. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, there were four to seven cities of India in the world’s 20 most polluted cities. But in the 2016 data released Tuesday, 14 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities are from India.
