The Great Choke: Pollution Levels Overshadow Our Economic Gains

To meet its higher aspirations, India must act with alacrity on multiple fronts to lift this haze over the success of its economy

- PRACHI MISHRA

India has achieved remarkable economic success, ranking as the world's fifth-largest economy. Economic experts predict India will rise to third place within five years. However, this economic growth stands in sharp contrast to its environmental challenges. India ranks as the third most polluted country globally and has the worst air quality among major economies. Many Indian cities regularly top global lists of the most polluted urban areas. The costs of air pollution are well known globally. A recent study in Lancet, the medical journal, reported increased effects of PM2.5 on daily mortality with strong evidence for such an association in India.

Air pollution's impact on education is an overlooked crisis, comparable to the learning setbacks of the covid pandemic. In Delhi alone, when poor air quality forces schools to switch to online classes, students lose at least an estimated 267 million hours of effective learning annually. This accumulates to a staggering 1.3 billion hours over five years. These massive educational disruptions threaten to impair students' long-term potential. This comes at a particularly challenging time, as schools are still working to overcome unprecedented learning gaps created by the pandemic and India's learning outcomes significantly trail global averages.

Every winter, as air pollution peaks, public discussion on the crisis intensifies, but this seasonal debate has failed to produce meaningful improvements in air quality. What's striking is that these discussions haven't translated into organized public pressure for change. Instead, citizens have resigned themselves to accepting poor air quality as inevitable, which is a remarkable paradox in the world's largest democracy.