Delhi Monitors, Bihar Breathes Blind: India's Air Pollution Monitoring Network Leaves 1.2 Billion People Uncovered
The 2026 State of India’s Environment Report exposes gaps in the country's air monitoring network: 64 per cent of districts lack continuous air quality monitoring.
Published : February 28, 2026 at 5:55 PM IST
Hyderabad: Every year, certain parts of India experience air pollution that many experts call a public health emergency. In winter, while Delhi NCR chokes and requires 24x7 operation of air purifiers indoors, the weather elsewhere, such as in Hyderabad, stays under breathable norms. Due to India's vast and diverse geography, the emissions and exposures vary dramatically across the country. However, the air pollution monitoring network has failed to keep pace with the scale and complexity of the challenge, claims the 2026 State of India’s Environment report.
Sharanjeet Kaur, deputy programme manager at CSE’s (Centre for Science and Environment) Urban Lab and one of the writers of the report, noted that CSE’s analysis showed only 15 per cent of India’s population—about 200 million people—live within 10 km of a continuous monitor, while the remaining 85 per cent, more than 1.2 billion people, breathe outside any measurable range.
India relies on two primary systems to monitor air quality. The National Air Quality Monitoring Programme, launched in 1984–85, uses manual stations that record data twice a week, providing long-term averages for a limited set of pollutants. In contrast, the newer Continuous Air Quality Monitoring Stations deliver real-time, hourly readings across multiple pollutants, offering a far more detailed picture of air quality trends.
India currently operates 562 real-time monitors across 294 cities and 966 manual stations in 419 cities and towns. Yet, as Sharanjeet Kaur points out, these seemingly impressive figures mask a critical imbalance: monitoring remains heavily concentrated in a handful of large urban centres. Entire districts, industrial belts, and rapidly expanding peri-urban areas still lie beyond the reach of the monitoring grid.
Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at CSE and head of its sustainable urbanisation programmes, observed that the gap in monitoring was not merely about missing information but reflected a deeper structural inequity in India’s environmental governance. She explained that cities equipped with multiple monitors were able to demonstrate progress, secure clean air funding, and frame action plans, whereas hundreds of smaller towns—many facing comparable or even higher levels of particulate pollution—lacked any real-time data altogether.
How the states and UTs fare
Sharanjeet Kaur highlighted that more than 64 per cent of India’s 742 districts lack any continuous air quality monitoring. Anumita Roychowdhury summed up the implications, noting that this gap means the country’s daily AQI updates, policy assessments, and performance-linked grants are based largely on data from a small, urbanised slice of India. For the rest of the country, she observed, pollution remains a lived reality but not a recorded one.
Air Quality Monitoring Coverage in India: Best and Worst
- Chandigarh: Every resident lives within 10 km of a real-time monitor. The best coverage in the country.
- Delhi: Only 3.5 per cent of the population is outside the measurable range. Strong monitoring presence across the capital.
- Puducherry: Nearly 50 per cent of its area is covered. Ranks third in terms of accessibility to monitoring.
- Maharashtra: One of India’s largest monitoring networks, but the coverage is concentrated around Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur, leaving vast regions unrepresented.
- Bihar: Just 13 per cent of residents live within 10 km of a monitor. Large gaps in monitoring across the state.
- Uttar Pradesh: Only 9 per cent of the population is covered. Among the weakest monitoring networks.
- West Bengal: Monitors 19 per cent of its population. Densely populated districts like Hooghly and Murshidabad lack a single real-time monitor.
- Northeast India: Assam has a few stations. Other states in the region operate only one or two stations each, leaving most areas uncovered.
Anumita Roychowdhury emphasised that the next phase of air quality monitoring in India must move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and adopt a hybrid network design. She explained that such a system should combine regulatory-grade monitors with validated low-cost sensors and satellite-driven datasets to ensure both accuracy and wider spatial coverage.
"Equally important is an exposure-based siting strategy that prioritises high-risk zones such as schools, hospitals, etc. As cities expand and emission sources shift, the monitoring grid should also take to dynamic relocation of stations and reassess sites regularly to reflect new patterns of pollution and land use," she said.
She also underlined that what India needs most is a unified and open data ecosystem, integrating datasets from various agencies into a single, accessible national portal.
