Air pollution comes in different forms -- they come from activities like residential and commercial biomass burning, coal burning, industrial emissions, stubble burning, diesel generators etc.  It is widely accepted that short-term and long-term exposure to air pollution can have an impact on disease burden and life expectancy. A new study, published in The Lancet, says that 16.7 lakh deaths in India were attributable to air pollution in 2019. That is nearly 18 per cent of total deaths!

It also paints a grim picture in the economic aspect. It says that the economic loss due to lost output from premature deaths attributable to air pollution in India in 2019 was $28.8 billion, and from morbidity attributable to air pollution was $8 billion. This is 1·36% of India's GDP.

We all know air pollution is a big problem in India, will we change?