Bhubaneswar: Thankfully, Odisha’s state capital does not figure in 22 cities of India that are the world’s 30 most polluted.
Delhi ranked the most polluted capital city globally, said a report prepared by the Swiss organisation, IQAir, in the form of the ‘World Air Quality Report, 2020’, which has released globally, News18 reported.
However, the report shows that Delhi’s air quality improved by approximately 15 per cent from 2019 to 2020. It said that despite the improvement, Delhi ranked as the 10th most polluted city and the top polluted capital city in the world.
“India continues to feature prominently at the top of the most polluted cities ranking, with 22 of the top 30 most polluted cities globally,” the report said. Besides Delhi, the 21 other Indian cities among the 30 most polluted cities in the world are Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Agra and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Bhiwari in Rajasthan, Faridabad, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bandhwari, Gurugram, Yamuna Nagar, Rohtak and Dharuhera in Haryana, and Muzaffarpur in Bihar.
The topmost polluted city is Xinjiang in China followed by nine Indian cities. Ghaziabad is the second most polluted city in the world followed by Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow and Bhiwari, the report added.