Delhi had highest per-capita economic loss due to air pollution in 2019: Lancet

By Sumit Saxena New Delhi, Dec 22 : Air pollution woes have quadrupled for Delhi, as the state suffered the highest per-capita economic loss due to air pollution last year, a study in the peer-reviewed medical journal Lancet suggests.
For years, northern India — especially New Delhi — has been battling critical levels of air pollution, which have remained consistently in the hazardous mark, for many days at a stretch, during winters. This air pollution has already taken a big toll on the health of the citizens and rattled the government, forcing it to devise new governance mechanism to address the menace of pollution in the capital.
The study said the economic loss due to lost output from premature deaths and morbidity from air pollution was 1.36 per cent of the GDP in India in 2019. In Delhi, the loss due to lost output from premature deaths and illness attributable to air pollution as a percentage of state GDP was 1.06 per cent.
Uttar Pradesh recorded highest loss to GDP at 1.34 per cent followed by Punjab at 1.22 per cent. “Delhi had the highest per-capita economic loss due to air pollution, followed by Haryana in 2019, with 5.4 times variation across all states,” said the findings.
According to the study, the economic loss per capita was highest in Delhi, which was to the tune of $62.0 followed by neighbouring Haryana at $53.8.
The study’s findings suggested that 1.67 million deaths were attributable to air pollution in India in 2019, accounting for 17.8 per cent of the total deaths in the country.