Studies by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in 2015 and 2016 had estimated over a million premature deaths linked to air pollution in India. Report warned India and China about severe implication of air pollution and claimed that both the countries were together responsible for over half the 4.2 million premature deaths that took place across the world in 2015 because of long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM).
"There are many serious institutions in India — NGOs, government organizations — which do research on this issue. And a proud country always trusts in its own data and takes action on that. (Controlling) air quality is not rocket science. What state governments and local bodies have to do, they have been told a number of times. In the future as well they will be told. They just have to work on four or five points," Dave said.
India monitors the trend of various air pollutants across the country under the National Air Quality Monitoring Program. The result of the monitoring shows that, while the levels of Particulate Matters have a fluctuating trend, the value of SO2 is generally within permissible limits, while the value of NO2 is fluctuating and slightly above the permissible limits.
