Emergency That Never Ends

Every winter, India rehearses the same script. As smog engulfs Delhi and much of north India, emergency measures are announced, courts intervene, schools shut and political attention briefly sharpens. When winds change or the monsoon arrives, pollution fades from view — and accountability fades with it. This cycle persists not because air pollution is seasonal, but because India has chosen to govern it as an episodic inconvenience rather than a structural failure.

The science is unequivocal. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is the most harmful air pollutant, penetrating deep into the lungs and bloodstream and increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, lung cancer and premature death. The World Health Organisation’s safe annual average limit is 5 micrograms per cubic metre. India’s national average remains close to 50 micrograms — a level that constitutes a continuous public health emergency. Yet this exposure has been politically normalised.

The extent of chronic exposure is stark. Delhi records barely 20–25 days a year that meet WHO health standards; for more than 330 days, residents breathe unsafe air. Mumbai and Kolkata manage only about 50–70 healthy days annually. Even Bengaluru and Chennai, often cited as cleaner cities, experience unhealthy air on nearly three out of four days each year. These figures underline a critical reality: unsafe air is not confined to winter or to the Indo-Gangetic Plain — it is a nationwide condition.

A key reason this crisis fails to trigger sustained action lies in how air quality is officially communicated. India’s Air Quality Index is fundamentally misaligned with health science. Air can be labelled “satisfactory” or “moderate” even when PM2.5 levels exceed WHO guidelines several times. This is not a semantic flaw but a policy choice. By understating health risk, the AQI dulls public urgency, reassures administrators and enables political complacency. Visibility improves; exposure does not.

Institutional weaknesses extend further. The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), India’s flagship response, exemplifies diluted ambition. Its original targets — a 20–30 per cent reduction in particulate pollution — were modest, non-binding and detached from health-based benchmarks. Even these limited goals have been pursued unevenly, with weak enforcement, uncertain funding and little consequence for failure. Cities are assessed on action plans and reporting compliance rather than on actual reductions in population exposure.

Equally damaging is the absence of effective inter-state and airshed-level governance. Air pollution does not respect administrative boundaries, yet regulatory responses remain fragmented along municipal and state lines. Crop-residue burning, thermal power generation, freight transport and industrial clusters operate across regions, while coordination mechanisms remain advisory and weak. Responsibility is routinely deflected — from cities to states, from states to the Centre, and ultimately to meteorology.

The costs of this governance failure are severe. Air pollution reduces average life expectancy in India by over three years, and by more than eight years in Delhi-NCR. Healthcare systems absorb the burden, productivity declines, and the poorest and youngest bear disproportionate harm. Still, policy remains reactive, litigation-driven and winter-centric.

Until India confronts air pollution as a systemic failure of standards, institutions and coordination, emergency measures will continue to substitute for reform. Clean air cannot be delivered through seasonal firefighting. It demands binding, health-aligned targets, credible enforcement and governance that matches the scale of the problem. Without this shift, unsafe air will remain India’s most enduring — and most tolerated — public health emergency.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is an environmental scientist and leads the Think Tank at the Mobius Foundation