New Normal?: On Concerns Regarding Air Pollution In India
India’s latest air quality report shows chronic pollution in 44 cities, with only four meeting safe standards.
The fact that 44 Indian cities now face chronic air pollution should not be surprising, but it should unsettle us. Pollution used to be described as a seasonal problem, something that flares up in winter and fades in summer. Today, it has become routine — year-round smog, daily health warnings, children wearing masks before school, elders checking air quality apps like weather forecasts. When a crisis becomes ordinary, the urgency drains away even though the harm keeps accumulating.
According to the latest report under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), only four cities met air quality targets. Forty-four others continue to exceed safe limits. This is not a number on paper. It is real people’s lungs, mornings spent indoors, and healthcare expenses that many households have quietly absorbed. When the data says persistent PM2.5 and PM10 levels, it means hospital visits, asthma attacks, lost school days, and lives shortened without fanfare.
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Pollution in India has many causes — vehicles, construction dust, industries, crop burning, thermal plants — and each city has its own mix. There is no single villain. The challenge is systemic, and the responses have been fragmented. Committees and targets exist. Yet the gap between intention and impact keeps widening.
Part of the problem is how we have grown accustomed to foul air. Persistent warnings often sound like background noise. When people no longer flinch at air quality alerts, the connection between policy and lived experience weakens.
If we are serious about clean air, we need not only stricter emission standards and monitoring, but routine accountability — clear timelines, transparent data and consequences for failure. Most of all, we need to treat clean air as a right, not a seasonal luxury. Without that shift, ordinary pollution will continue to steal breaths without ever making headlines.
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