India's filthy air is cutting 660 million lives short by three years, research claims
Filthy air reducing lifespan by more than three years for hundreds of millions of citizens - and it's likely to get worse, study reveals
India's filthy air is cutting 660 million lives short by about three years - while nearly all of the country's 1.2 billion citizens are breathing in harmful levels of pollution, new research reveals.
The study, by a team of environmental economists at US universities, highlights just how extensive India's air problems have become after years of pursuing an all-growth agenda with little regard for the environment.
While New Delhi last year earned the dubious title of being the world's most polluted city, the problem extends nationwide, with 13 Indian cities now on the World Health Organisation's list of the 20 most polluted.
That pollution burden is estimated to be costing more than half the population at least 3.2 years of their lives, according to the study led by Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago and involving economists from Harvard and Yale universities.
The most polluted regions, falling generally in northern India, are also among India's most populous.
"The extent of the problem is actually much larger than what we normally understand," said Anant Sudarshan, the India director of the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago and one of the study's co-authors.