- Wednesday, February 26, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
NOVEMBER saw the air quality in Delhi plummeting the worst level in six years with not even one “good” day. Schools have remained closed, construction work has been reduced to the minimum and only goods vehicles carrying essential items have been allowed to ply on the roads.
But the move to ask people to remain indoors to avoid polluted air has brought little relief. A recent research has shown that pollution inside homes is significantly worse than that outside, The Times reported. Even the rich are not out of danger.
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The Energy Police Institute at the University of Chicago undertook a study of the pollution levels in the city between 2018 and 2020. It found the levels of particulate matter (or PM2.5) – the tiny particles that lodge inside the lungs – were “substantially higher” inside houses of the residents than those outside.
The levels of PM2.5 ranged from 23 to 39 times the safe limit set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
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Even the rich residents are at equally in danger, despite running air purifiers round the clock. According to the US institute, air purifiers in well-off households brought down the pollution level by only 10 per cent compared with those who have no such device.
“In Delhi the bottom line is, whether someone is rich or poor, no one gets to breathe clean air,” Dr Kenneth Lee, the author of the study, was quoted as saying.
The findings have alarmed the residents of Delhi. Dhruv Agarwal, the owner of an electronics shop in Delhi’s Khanna Market told The Times, “I held out against buying air purifiers till a month ago when the air became so foul you could smell the poisonous fumes because they are very expensive. But what’s the point if the difference is only 10 per cent.”
According to experts, indoor pollution can be more concentrated than outdoors, the reason being that pollutants from outside are compounded by cooking, paint, pet dander, incense, smoking, burning of anti-mosquito coils, candles and poor ventilation, The Times added.
“Even air fresheners release volatile organic compounds that lead to air pollution. And during winters we tend to keep all our doors and windows firmly shut, which makes it worse,” Jyoti Pande Lavakare, co-founder of the campaign group Care for Air, said.
She uses a gadget that monitors the air quality in every room of her home regularly. Most people avoid knowing how bad the air is and at most they look at apps that show the level of pollution in the city as recorded by the government-monitoring stations but not inside their houses.
The air quality in Delhi has remained deadly for over a month now with the pollution levels 20 times more than those deemed safe by the WHO. The country’s Supreme Court has reprimanded the authorities time and again for not doing enough to curb the life-threatening problem but nothing much has happened so far. More than a million Indians are estimated to be killed by pollution every year.
