The prime-time debate on national TV that runs each time on Diwali no longer argues a moot question. The fact that high air quality has its impact on all sectors of the economy and all aspects of human health is well established. The discussion should be one of short, medium, and long-term solutions to be able to tackle the menace which every country has struggled with, but which every country has also tried to solve in a way that works for them.

This Diwali once again reminded us how deeply air pollution affects public health in India. In Delhi-NCR, pollution levels spiked sharply in the days following the festival, with PM concentrations rising more than threefold compared to pre-Diwali levels. Even if the spike is temporary, hospitals across the region are reporting a surge in admissions for respiratory distress, asthma, and cardiac complications – a grim annual trend that underscores the real cost of polluted air. Permitting green crackers led to the highest concentration of PM2.5 and the highest mean of PM2.5 on Diwali night as compared to the last five years. Even if crackers are a one-time affair on Diwali, the load it adds on baseload levels disrupts the thin balance which Delhi’s air hangs on.

Against this backdrop, a new Health Benefit Assessment Dashboard, developed by Climate Trends in collaboration with IIT-Delhi, provides timely insight into just how damaging prolonged exposure to polluted air can be. The tool quantifies the health burden of air pollution, showing in scientific terms how clean air directly translates into fewer diseases, especially among women and children.

When India launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019, it was largely seen as an environmental intervention, aimed at reducing PM2.5 and PM10 levels by 20–30 per cent by 2024, using 2017 as the........

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