Delhi Monitors, Bihar Breathes Blind: India's Air Pollution Monitoring Network Leaves 1.2 Billion People Uncovered
Every year, certain parts of India experience air pollution that many experts call a public health emergency. In winter, while Delhi NCR chokes and requires 24x7 operation of air purifiers indoors, the weather elsewhere, such as in Hyderabad, stays under breathable norms. Due to India's vast and diverse geography, the emissions and exposures vary dramatically across the country. However, the air pollution monitoring network has failed to keep pace with the scale and complexity of the challenge, claims the 2026 State of India’s Environment report. Sharanjeet Kaur, deputy programme manager at CSE’s (Centre for Science and Environment) Urban Lab and one of the writers of the report, noted that CSE’s analysis showed only 15 per cent of India’s population—about 200 million people—live within 10 km of a continuous monitor, while the remaining 85 per cent, more than 1.2 billion people, breathe outside any measurable range. India relies on two primary systems to monitor air quality. The National Air Quality Monitoring Programme, launched in 1984–85, uses manual stations that record data twice a week, providing long-term averages for a limited set of pollutants. In contrast, the newer Continuous Air Quality Monitoring Stations deliver real-time, hourly readings across multiple pollutants, offering a far more detailed picture of air quality trends. India currently operates 562 real-time monitors across 294 cities and 966 manual stations in 419 cities and towns. Yet, as Sharanjeet Kaur points out, these seemingly impressive figures mask a critical imbalance: monitoring remains heavily concentrated in a handful of large urban centres. Entire districts, industrial belts, and rapidly expanding peri-urban areas still lie beyond the reach of the monitoring grid. Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at CSE and head of its sustainable urbanisation programmes, observed that the gap in monitoring was not merely about missing information but reflected a deeper structural inequity in India’s environmental governance. She explained that cities equipped with multiple monitors were able to demonstrate progress, secure clean air funding, and frame action plans, whereas hundreds of smaller towns—many facing comparable or even higher levels of particulate pollution—lacked any real-time data altogether.