'Need To Align Policy With Health-Based Science': Experts On Air Quality Standards

In a move critics are calling a calculated deflection, the Union government has doubled down on its stance that World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines are merely "guidance documents" and not enforceable rules.

Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh's written reply to the Rajya Sabha on Thursday came just days after the 2024 World Air Quality Report by Swiss firm IQAir exposed the scale of the problem: 13 of the globe's 20 most polluted cities are in India, with Meghalaya's Byrnihat claiming the unwanted top spot and Delhi enduring its sixth consecutive year as the world's most-polluted capital.

Singh argued that such global assessments lack "official authority," insisting instead that India tailors its standards to "local geography, socio-economic factors, and even the immune power of its people".

He said the country's 2009 National Ambient Air Quality Standards - unchanged for 16 years despite experts' pleas for updates - were fitting for these realities, with an annual PM 2.5 limit of 40 micrograms per cubic meter deemed "appropriate".

The WHO's 2021 guidelines recommend a far stricter annual PM 2.5 average of just 5 micrograms per cubic meter - eight times lower than India's threshold.

Independent monitoring by IQAir pegs India's 2024 urban average at 50.6 micrograms per cubic meter, routinely breaching even the government's own limits.

While Singh is correct in saying that WHO norms carry no legal weight and nations often adapt them locally, environmental experts have urged alignment with cutting-edge science.

The government's preferred metric, the Swachh Vayu Survekshan, fares little better under scrutiny - it evaluates cities largely on bureaucratic compliance with the National Clean Air Programme (accounting for 64% of scores), with not enough emphasis on raw pollution data where "top performers" still hover at 70-80 micrograms per cubic meter, said experts.

Progress under the Rs 10,000-crore National Clean Air Programme has also been a mixed bag.

Officials highlighted fewer "Severe+" days in Delhi this winter and a bump in "Good-Moderate" readings in 2025, crediting expanded monitoring networks. But annual averages in the capital linger around 90 micrograms per cubic meter - the highest among global capitals - and the programme's ambitious 20-30% pollution cut by 2024 was not achieved.

'No Correlation'

The central government reiterated that there is "no conclusive national data to establish a direct correlation between deaths or diseases occurring exclusively due to air pollution", while admitting that "air pollution is one of the triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases".

However, the 'State of Global Air 2020' report says air pollution claimed 1.67 million lives prematurely in India in 2019, the latest full estimate, slashing average life expectancy by 5.2 years and draining up to 3% of GDP annually through lost productivity and medical bills.

"While official rankings may not be mandated by a global authority, independent scientific analysis, including the 2024 World Air Quality Report, consistently shows that India ranks among the countries with the highest PM 2.5 pollution, with several cities repeatedly recorded as some of the world's most polluted," environmentalist Bhavreen Kandhari told NDTV.

"Experts have warned repeatedly that national standards permitting concentrations many times higher than WHO's recommended levels mean public health remains at risk, and that dismissing global data as 'not official' should not distract from the urgent need to align policy with health-based science and real-world measurements," he added.

Anju Goel, environmentalist at TERI, acknowledged the non-binding nature of WHO rules, but warned against complacency. "Yes, WHO guidelines are not binding," she said, "and also in India, we can never achieve WHO guidelines without transboundary cooperation as even our background levels are much higher than WHO guidelines."

In November 2025, wellness advocate Luke Coutinho filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court of India, seeking time-bound revision of the 2009 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to at least interim levels aligned with WHO 2021 guidelines. On November 18, the Supreme Court permitted the withdrawal of the petition with liberty to intervene in the ongoing MC Mehta vs Union of India case, where issues of NAAQS revision and stricter enforcement continue to be actively considered.