India’s opposition lawmakers protested in parliament on Thursday and demanded that Delhi’s air pollution, that exposes the capital's 30 million residents to severe respiratory risks, be declared a national emergency.
Delhi and its adjoining areas are often covered in smog during winter, as cold, dense air traps emissions from vehicles, construction sites, and crop burning, pushing pollution levels to among the highest in the world and creating a gas chamber-like situation.
Millions of people in Delhi alone face respiratory risks as pollution levels skyrocket in October and November.
As the air quality in India’s northern plains dipped sharply to “severe levels” in the past weeks, citizens kept up protests and opposition lawmakers raised the issue in parliament. Vijay Kumar, a Congress lawmaker from the southern Kanyakumari town, moved an adjournment motion in the the lower house (Lok Sabha) to demand an urgent discussion on air pollution. Adjournment motions are introduced to draw the attention of the House to any matter of urgent public importance.
“Delhi has turned into an open air gas chamber, with crores breathing toxic air that is harming every organ of the body and causing long term illness, even in children and young adults,” he said.
Calling on parliament to declare Delhi’s air crisis a national public health emergency to activate science-based national clean air plans, the lawmaker said: “Every breath inhaled today is a health risk. Every minute of delay is a betrayal. India is suffocating. This House must act, now!”
The federal government confirmed recording more than 200,000 cases of acute respiratory illnesses in six state-run hospitals in Delhi between 2022 and 2024.
More than 30,000 people with respiratory illnesses had to be hospitalised in the past three years, the government told parliament this week.
Mr Kumar added: “Crores (tens of millions) of our citizens are breathing toxic air that is silently attacking the lungs, heart, brain, kidneys, gut, metabolism – every organ of the human body. This is not pollution anymore. This is poison in the air, and it is pushing our people towards long-term disease and early death.”
The lawmaker also flagged the under-reporting of pollution indices by the authorities, highlighting reports of “manipulation of air quality data”.
Senior Congress politician Sonia Gandhi called for the government’s immediate intervention. "It is the government's responsibility to do something as children are dying. Old people like me are also finding it difficult," she told reporters.
"Air pollution is not a political issue. The government should take concrete action, we are all with it," she said.
India monitors its air quality with the reading of concentrations of Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM 2.5) – a particle thinner than the human hair, which increases with pollutants in the air. PM 2.5 refers to particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less in diameter that can be carried into the lungs, risking deadly diseases and cardiac problems.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) in the Indian capital remains in the “poor” or “very poor” category for most part of the year but with the cooler air settling with the onset of winters, air quality in multiple neighbourhoods exceeds the highest “severe” level. This category indicates that the air is considered dangerous for healthy people and potentially life-threatening for those with respiratory conditions.
Mr Kumar alleged that the Delhi government, led by prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has failed to monitor the crisis and only nine out of total 37 air monitoring stations were working during the Diwali festival, when pollution is recorded at its worst.
“Twenty-eight stations – 28 lifelines of critical data – were dead when the people needed them most. When the air was at its most toxic, the Government was flying blind,” he said in the adjournment motion.
Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta announced the formation of a specialised committee that will work continuously to improve the city’s worsening air quality, according to The Hindu newspaper. She said her government was treating the air crisis as an “emergency mission”.
His adjournment motion comes a day after police in Delhi arrested several people who were allegedly part of a larger crowd that had gathered to protest against the worsening air quality, after accusing them of having ties to a rebel insurgency group.
