Non-communicable diseases leading cause of deaths in region

The World Health Organization (WHO), in its pollution report on Tuesday, ranked 14 Indian cities among the world's 15 most polluted cities with Kanpur being the most-affected based on PM2.5 levels in 2016.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of deaths globally and in the region, and air pollution contributes significantly to NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and lung cancer. Cleaning up the air we breathe will help prevent NCDs, particularly among women and vulnerable groups such as children, those already ill and the elderly.

Gwalior stood second on the WHO's chart. Other cities such as Delhi, Varanasi Kanpur, Faridabad, Gaya, Patna, Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur also made it to the list. The study ranked 4,300 cities in 108 countries across the world.

The national Capital ranked sixth in terms of PM 2.5 with an annual average of 143 g/m3 in 2016. In terms of PM10, Delhi stood third in the world with its annual average of 292 g/m3.

"The report by WHO is a warning about the serious and run-away pollution and public health emergency that confronts India today, said Sunita Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Greenpeace India said this data clearly shows that India needs to do more towards solving the air pollution crisis.

"It's surprising that the WHO report contains data only for 32 cities. This could be due to the lack of readily available data in the public domain," it said.

Greenpeace India referred to its Airpocalypse-II Report which it said had complied data from 280 cities across India. The data highlighted that more than 80 per cent cities had pollution levels beyond National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) set up by CPCB which is even worse than what can be interpreted from this dataset by WHO.