Guwahati: Citizens of Guwahati are inhaling the most polluted air across Northeast India, according to a report by New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment.
According to the analysis, Guwahati has the most polluted air in northeastern India: average PM2.5 levels in 2021 (till November 30) has already surpassed the 2019 annual average in Guwahati.
Guwahati has almost two months of very poor air quality days. This year, so far, the number of days with air quality in ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ categories stands at 54 days in Guwahati city.
This is comparable to cities of north India that are more polluted compared to those in the northeastern states.
The city’s 2020 annual average was also higher than its 2019 average, which indicates continuous worsening of air in the city. Shillong is the only other city in the region that has a station generating data for over two years, but due to poor data availability, its annual averages cannot be considered credible. Nevertheless, the city’s average is considerably below the annual standard, the report said.
Among other cities meeting the minimum data availability requirements, Agartala with a 2020 average of 45 microgramme per cubic metre (ug/m3) is the second most polluted city in the region.
Kohima with a 2020 average of 35 ug/m3 is the third most polluted city in the region.
Aizwal and Naharlagun donot meet the minimum data availability requirement, but the limited data available indicates that these two would most probably be meeting the annual standard.
In other cities, ‘good’ and ‘satisfactory’ days dominate but ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ days have also begun to emerge. Agartala registered 10 ‘very poor’ days, while Kohimahad two. There is a considerable number of days in these cities for which the AQI (air quality index) could not be calculated due to poor data availability. All three cities meet the 24-hour standard for about half of the days in 2021 so far. The AQI chart for Shillong, Aizwal and Naharlaguncould not be made as these cities don’t have enough data.
CSE has analysed the urban air quality status in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh. This is part of the air quality tracker initiative of the Urban Data Analytics Lab of CSE, which was initiated last winter.
The objective of this new analysis is to understand the magnitude and trend in winter pollution in major cities of the region which have recently started real-time air quality monitoring.
This is an assessment of annual and seasonal trends in PM2.5 concentration for the period January 1, 2019 to December 7, 2021.
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