PM10 Concentrations in City Breach Permissible Limits

The city has shown high seasonal variability, but no sustained improvement across any of the four years

- Gayatri Vajpeyee

PUNE: An analysis of Pune's air quality by Respirer Living Sciences Pvt Ltd, a climate-tech startup, based on four years of data from the AQ Atlas platform, shows that PM10 concentrations in the city have consistently breached the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) limit of 60 µg/m³—even during summer months when pollution is expected to ease. The city has shown high seasonal variability, but no sustained improvement across any of the four years.

The report published by the startup titled 'An in-depth analysis of PM10 trends from 2021 to 2024' provides a comprehensive analysis of PM10 concentration trends across 11 major Indian cities between 2021 and 2024. The cities include Delhi, Patna, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. The findings reveal that all cities have consistently breached the NAAQS limit of 60 µg/m³, with several northern cities such as Bhiwadi, Delhi, and Ghaziabad recording annual averages well over 150 µg/m³.