Urban, Rural India Similarly Polluted, But Mitigation Focuses On Cities: Report

While air pollution continues to significantly affect both rural and urban populations, India's mitigation action is hugely concentrated in the cities and often ignores rural parts of the country, a report has found. 

The analysis found that Particulate Matter 2.5 levels in the rural and urban regions across India are very similar. While these have witnessed a similar trend of decline over the last few years, levels continue to be higher than the safe limits in most states. While rural regions saw PM 2.5 levels decline by 19.1%, urban regions recorded an 18.7% dip between 2017 and 2022. 

'Status of Urban and Rural air quality exposure at a national scale: A comparative analysis' by Climate Trends - a research-based consulting and capacity building initiative -  used Satellite-Based Application For Air Quality Monitoring and Management at National Scale data from IIT Delhi for PM 2.5 estimation and the Global Human Settlement Layer data for urban and rural classification.

The report showed that Uttar Pradesh has recorded the best progress from 2017 to 2022, with a reduction of 37.8% and 38.1% in urban and rural PM 2.5 levels, respectively. Maharashtra was the worst performing state, with only a dip of 7.7% in its urban PM 2.5 levels and Gujarat - with a decrease of 8.2% in its rural PM 2.5 levels - made the least progress. 

The Union Territories (UTs) of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, too, made little progress, with approximately a 4-7% decrease in PM 2.5 from 2017 to 2022. And, with urban PM 2.5 levels going up by 0.3%, Chandigarh was the only UT or state to see an increase.

Dr Arun Sharma, Director, ICMR-NIRCMD (National Institute for Implementation Research on Non Communicable Diseases), Jodhpur, said, "This analysis is a reiteration that air pollution is not a problem of cities alone; the rural population is as affected. Prevention and mitigation measures should be based on local conditions. Documentation of health effects is as important as exposure documentation."

Sagnik Dey, Professor, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, said, "This analysis is a clear indication that India is inching towards plateauing its upward rising air pollution levels since 2016-2017. This is a positive achievement, however, the challenge now lies towards bringing the needle down further, especially as we are in the last year of the National Clean Air Programme's targets of reducing 20-30% particulate matter levels by 2024."