Air pollution is no longer a metro-city problem
The State of India’s Environment (SoE) 2026 report, published by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), states that air pollution within a broader public health framework, emphasising its pervasive and nationwide character. The principal sources of pollution – including vehicles, thermal power plants, industrial combustion, household biomass burning, and open waste burning – are widespread across both urban and rural regions. As the economic development expands geographically, so too do the environmental consequences associated with it. Every year, as October approaches and the stubble smoke begins its seasonal drift across the Indo-Gangetic plain, India rediscovers its air quality crisis. Media attention intensifies, environment ministries issue advisories, and Delhi’s Air Quality Index becomes a political battlefield. And every year, as the monsoon rains arrive the following June, the story quietly shifts. The smog lifts. The camera moves on. The crisis, we are told, is over – until next winter. The assumption that India’s air pollution crisis is primarily seasonal is complicated by the case of Byrnihat, an industrial settlement located on the Assam – Meghalaya border. According to the 2024 IQAir World Air Quality Report, the town identified as the World’s most polluted urban area recorded an annual mean PM2.5 concentration of 128.2 μg/m3. That figure is not a winter spike. It is a year-round, 365-day average. And it’s more than 25 times the World Health Organisation’s recommended safe limit of 5 μg/m3. Byrnihat’s emergence as the world’s most polluted city was not a sudden development. It had already been declared India’s most polluted urban centre by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2023. Despite this designation, the town lacked contentious real-time air quality monitoring until international attention brought the issue into sharper focus. The town’s residents – breathing hazardous air every single day – existed, for all practical governance purposes, in a data void. A crisis that quietly spread The 2024 World Air Quality Report delivered a verdict that should force a fundamental rethinking of India’s clean air policy. Out of the 20 most polluted cities globally, 13 were located in India. Significantly, the list extends beyond major metropolitan centres to include towns such as Mullanpur, Faridabad, Loni, Gurugram, Gangapur, and Bhiwadi, highlighting the rapidly industrialising satellite towns and secondary cities such as Haryana, Rajasthan, and Western Uttar Pradesh, suggesting that pollution burdens are increasingly linked to the patterns of peri–urban growth and industrial decentralisation. These findings carry significant policy implications. India’s air quality policy has been architecturally designed around its metro cities. The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched in 2019, targets 130 non–attainment cities with a revised aim of achieving up to a 40% reduction in PM10 concentrations by 2025-26. Yet a 2026 assessment by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that a substantial majority of the monitored cities remained above prescribed PM10 standards, while a significant number also exceeded PM2.5 thresholds. The more dangerous, finer fraction of particulate matter that penetrates deep into lung tissue and the bloodstream. The State of India’s Environment (SoE) 2026 report, published by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), states that air pollution within a broader public health framework, emphasising its pervasive and nationwide character. The principal sources of pollution – including vehicles, thermal power plants, industrial combustion, household biomass burning, and open waste burning – are widespread across both urban and rural regions. As the economic development expands geographically, so too do the environmental consequences associated with it. The SoE report by CSE even notes that India cannot have livable cities, or attract business and trade without improving air quality. The monitoring gap The case of Byrnihat illustrates systematic failure in India’s air quality governance architecture. As of 2025, 28 out of 130 NCAP cities still had no contentious ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS). Furthermore, the NCAP target to establish 1,500 manual stations by 2024 remained unmet, with a shortfall of 465 stations even in 2025. And critically, only 90 of 130 NCAP cities had completed source apportionment studies – meaning that till now roughly 40 cities formally enrolled in India’s flagship clean air programme do not actually know what is making their air dirty. The issue lies at the core of effective air governance. Without reliable information regarding the principal source of pollution, policymakers cannot efficiently allocate resources, design targeted interventions, or enforce regulatory compliance. The Centre for Science and Environment's own assessment of NCAP notes that even though the programme was designed to address both PM10 and PM2.5, in practice, only PM10 has been used for performance assessment. As a result, PM2.5 pollution, which poses greater health risks, has received comparatively limited attention in performance evaluation frameworks. The allocation and utilisation of the financial resources further highlight shortcomings in the implementation of the NCAP. Of the ₹11,211 crore released under the NCAP and the Fifteenth Finance Commission between 2019 and 2025, only ₹7,594 crore, 68% was actually utilised. Moreover, expenditure was heavily concentrated on road dust management, while industry and household fuel, the two most significant contributors to fine particulate matter each received only 1% of the funds. Monitoring and capacity building received a mere 4%. The distribution raises questions regarding the alignment of expenditure priorities with major pollution sources. Human cost of the blind spot The significance of these governance failures must be assessed in the light of their public health consequences. A 2024 study published in The Lancet Planetary Health found that short–term PM2.5 exposure was associated with elevated risk of death in Indian cities, even at concentrations well below India’s current PM2.5 standard, itself already far weaker than WHO guidelines. Additional estimates that air pollution linked to fossil fuels and biomass contributed to roughly 1.6 million deaths in India in 2021, highlighting the enormous human cost of persistent exposure. The public health implications of these findings are substantial. A 2024 study from Karolinska Institutet, analysing 655 Indian districts over a decade, found that each 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 concentration was associated with an 8.6% rise in mortality. In the context of Byrnihat, exceptionally high pollution levels of 128.2 μg/m3 against a safe limit of 5, the resulting health burden is unlikely to be merely theoretical. Rather, it represents a persistent and significant public health concern requiring urgent attention. The health impacts of Byrnihat air pollution are increasingly evident in public health data. Reported respiratory infection cases rose from 2,082 in 2022 to 3,681 in 2024, representing a substantial increase over a relatively short period. Behind those figures are families coping with illness, children missing classes, workers losing income, and elderly residents facing heightened health risk. Pollution is often discussed in technical terms, but in effect are deeply personal. National air quality indicators further illustrate the scale of the challenge. In 2025, India’s average PM2.5 concentration was 48.9 μg/m3, equivalent to an AQI of 134, classified as unhealthy for sensitive groups, and almost 9.78 times the WHO annual guideline. The people living in those places rarely appear in national debates, even though they bear a disproportionate share of the country’s environmental burden. Delhi-centric frame must change India’s clean air policy is shaped less by where the pollution is worst, and more by where the outrage is loudest. Delhi’s residents, backed by national media attention and frequent judicial intervention, have ensured that poor air quality carries political consequences. Measures such as the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), Traffic restrictions, odd–even car system, school closure, and construction bans exist because citizens, activists, and courts transformed dirty air into a political liability. Towns like Byrnihat rarely command the attention that Delhi receives. Their residents are often workers and families living within industrial corridors, far removed from the media spotlight and centres of political influence. Similar conditions exist in towns such as Bhagalpur, Begusaria, and Dhanbad, as well as numerous rapidly industrialising urban centres where pollution is a persistent structural challenge rather than a seasonal phenomenon. This is the “air quality blindspot” this World Environment Day demands we confront: a governance responding loudly to a seasonal crisis in politically significant cities while allowing chronic, year–round industrial pollution in peripheral towns to poison communities quietly, consistently, and with near–total impunity. Right to breathe, everywhere World Environment Day 2026 adopts the theme “Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future”. However, aspirations for the future must be grounded in present realities. For millions of Indians residing in smaller towns and industrial regions, the immediate reality remains persistent exposure to hazardous air pollution, often accompanied by inadequate monitoring and regulatory oversight. Byrnihat should not be viewed as an isolated case. It demonstrates the risks associated with development processes that outpace regulatory oversight and environmental monitoring. More fundamentally, it raises concerns regarding the unequal distribution of environmental protection and the extent to which access to clean air is mediated by political visibility and institutional responsiveness. If there is one lesson to draw from this World Environment Day, it’s that India’s air pollution crisis extends far beyond the cities that dominate national headlines. Smog is not confined to Delhi’s winters. Air pollution impacts communities nationwide, many of which continue to experience significant environmental and public health risks without receiving commensurate regulatory or public attention. Recognising these communities is the first step towards addressing the problem effectively. Adarsh Anand & Vikash Kumar are law students at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.