As many as 15 cities out of world's 20 worst polluted cities are from India while a total of 35 cities from the country find place in the globe's 50 most polluted cities, says the report.
Bhiwadi, the industrial town of Alwar district in Rajasthan, has left behind Delhi in topping the air pollution charts on world index for the year 2021.
IQAir, which monitors air pollution around the world, has released its 2021 Global Air Quality Report covering 6,475 cities in 117 countries. According to this report, Bhiwadi is the most polluted city.
The average level of PM-2.5 has been recorded at 106.2 in Bhiwadi in 2021 against 96.4 in Delhi. PM-2.5 is the unit to measure the level of pollution.
In the category of cities, Ghaziabad is at number two after Bhiwadi, where the pollution level is 102.
As the pollution level remains high in this town of desert state, a separate regional office has been set up within Alwar district.
A senior officer of the Pollution Control Board, Bhiwadi, said that there are more than 2,000 factories in Bhiwadi out of which over 300 generate pollution. "We are trying to control it. There is complete monitoring of factories with boilers. The fuel pattern of 70 per cent of them has also changed. Apart from this, smoke due to traffic load and dust flying from broken roads is also a big reason for pollution."
Acting collector Sunita Pankaj said that besides industries the vehicular movement on the highway contributes to the air pollution as well. Bhiwadi has many small and large scale industries of steel, automobiles and electronics. Major cause of pollution is air dust which is 48 to 50 per cent, she said.
In 2020, Bhiwadi ranked fourth on the world pollution index.
(With Inputs From Odishatv Bureau)